No, Changle Lu isn't closing and here's why

Second perhaps only to Cheesegate, Changle Lu had people venting their frustrations last week when a local WeChat account Zhoumo Zuosha got the rumour mill churning that the city government would be closing, and promptly flattening the street of eternal happiness.

Naturally, netizens – laowai and local alike – did not take well to this news. The historic Shanghainese thoroughfare has long been known as the city’s answer to Harajuku, full of edgy boutiques, traditional eateries and the residence of the influential Chinese painter Li Zikai. With all this going on along the popular stretch, it's hard to fathom why the city would want to put its heritage to the wrecking ball.

Thankfully it’s not, nor is ever likely to.

Changle Lu, along with 63 other historic arteries, are immune to the caution-to-the-wind urban development that has characterised Shanghai’s cityscape. That is because in 2007 these became the Yong Bu Takuan 永不拓宽 or 'Streets that Will Never Be Widened', reports Xinhua News in response to last week's viral WeChat article.

This historic initiative – the first of its kind in China – does exactly what it says on the tin, having been put in place to protect the legacy of Shanghai’s unique cosmopolitan past. The ‘Never Wideners’ – built largely between the mid 19th and 20th centuries – are living relics of the city’s history as a treaty port, and a number of architectural styles, both Eastern and Western are represented among the boulevards’ shopfronts and residences.

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