In Datong, I have seen this picture since the first day I moved here. Abandoned and partly demolished warehouses in the city center.
The former mayor Geng Yanbo had a very ambitious plan of urban renewal for the city, especially for the center areas. Demolition/construction started in 2009, and was not achieved because the mayor was transfered to Taiyuan in 2012. Since then, the place was in-between demolished and rebuilt, both parts still « waiting » and wild grass growing on them.
This commercial area full of markets and shops used to be one of Datong’s most lively places. The warehouses were mostly destroyed after March 2014, but total demolition was not carried out. I believe it is because the city government was (financially) in trouble and the mayor was going to change again (!). A few days ago however, it seems that the demolition work finally started again.
Sometimes, walking around in China makes you see pretty strange things, like these two totems standing in front of the demolished warehouses. No, I still don’t get it…
The only person I could find in the rubble was a poor homeless guy who was so surprised to see a foreigner in this place and in this cold that he just kept staring, and did not answer my questions about the totems. I don’t think that people living in such a strange place can keep their right mind anyway…
This warehouse building still presents an interesting perspective, even if I would have liked to see it back in 2013, with its large white ceiling…
In the warehouses, everything was gone except the concrete structure. But some buildings were photogenic, including from the inside.
There were no stairs to go to the upper floors anymore, only a rope that one could use to climb up there, but with the sound of bulldozers tearing all the buildings apart, I did not try any crazy stunt and left right away.
In the pictures below, one can notice the unfinished shopping mall: it is supposed to become Datong’s biggest shopping mall area, but right now, the site is an abandoned work in progress due to a lack of funding…
I’ll write a post about it in the section « unfinished abandoned constructions ».
February 2016 update: demolition complete… except for the totems
During the Spring Festival vacation, the bulldozers did not stop working and by February 14. 2016, this is how the place looked like. Everything was torn down.
Actually, not everything: the two totems were still standing! I am now thinking that these two might be sacred…
