纽约时报 | 六尺之下，北京生机
Breathing Life Into Spaces Well Beyond 6 Feet Under Beijing’s Streets
BEIJING — The Digua Shequ community center in Beijing is painted in cheery pastel tones and festooned with colorful paper dragons hung from the ceiling. Inside are a hair salon, a cafe and a gym — normal shops for a typical neighborhood — except that they are underground.
北京。地瓜社区被涂上活泼的粉蜡笔色调漆，五颜六色的纸龙挂在天花板上。里面有个一个美发厅、一所咖啡馆和一个健身房，这是一如平常的街区店铺，只是在地下。
All of the storefronts are two floors below the street, built inside a former bomb shelter designed to withstand a nuclear war.
所有的店面都在街道的地下二层，这里曾是为抵御核战争而修建的防空洞。
Digua Shequ, a start-up that turns unused basements into community centers and whose name is Chinese for Sweet Potato Community, has been renovating the shelter in northeast Beijing for the past year.
地瓜社区是一家初创企业，它将废用的地下室改造成社区，其字面意思是“红薯的社区”，过去一年中，公司一直在翻修北京东北侧的防空洞。
It wants to reimagine the future of the city’s underground spaces, once largely ignored but now contested by an unlikely combination of government, commercial and artistic interests.
地瓜社区打算重新构想城市地下空间的未来，这里一度被忽视，现在政府、商家和艺术家罕见的联合起来，这里变成了香饽饽。
The center’s founder, Zhou Zishu, a former designer at the National Museum of China, said he was inspired by the debate over what to do with Beijing’s bomb shelters, which currently house well over 100,000 people.
社区创始人周子舒（音）曾是国家博物馆的设计师，他说自己从北京的防空洞何为的讨论中受到启发，现在有超过10万人住在那里。
“Our work is not just about renovating basement spaces and making them look better,” Mr. Zhou said. “It’s actually about improving the lives of residents and creating a new sense of community. We want to take these private spaces and make them public again.”
“我们的工作不仅是翻修地下空间，改善外观。我们真正做的是提升居民的生活质量，创造全新意义上的社区。我们想让这些私人空间回到公众视野中。”
But not everyone agrees with Digua Shequ’s vision. The uncertain fate of the shelters, as well as the rules for their use, has drawn attention from several competing stakeholders.
可并非所有人都赞同地瓜社区的设想。防空洞不确定的命运和对其使用的法规引起有竞争关系各方的注意。
Beijing’s more than 10,000 concrete bunkers, built over 40 years ago, were a crucial part of Mao’s Cold War defense strategy. Some of the bunkers, which were handed over to neighborhood authorities in the 1980s, when the country’s economy was liberalized, were turned into shops or offices.
北京四十多年前建造了超过10万个水泥地堡，这是毛泽东冷战时期防御战略的关键部分。一些地堡在上世纪八十年代交付民用，当时这个国家的经济正在自由化，地堡变成了商店或办公室。
Most were converted into living spaces and rented out to migrant workers or residents trying to duck Beijing’s soaring real estate prices.
大多数被改造成居住空间，出租给民工或那些付不起北京高企房价的人们。
The called these subterranean residents , and the shelters gained a reputation for neglect. In 2010, Beijing announced that the residential use of underground spaces would be illegal by the end of 2012, a deadline that was extended to 2017.
新闻媒体称这些藏在地下的居民为“鼠族”，防空洞也广遭诟病。2010年，北京宣称到2012年底，地下空间作居住用途将被视作非法，其最后期限被延展至2017年。
One pressing question facing the city is what to do with the people who still live in the bunkers. Estimates of their numbers range from 150,000 to a million. Nearly every apartment building in the Digua Shequ center’s neighborhood has a former shelter or a basement.
城市面临的一个紧迫问题是那些住在地堡里的人怎么办。估计这一数量少则15万，多达100万。几乎所有地瓜社区改造的建筑都曾是防空洞或地下室。
Most of the residential units in them are rented out for 500 to 900 renminbi a month, or roughly $77 to $138 — about one-third of what it would cost to live aboveground.
大多数其中的居民房以每月500到900元（77美元-138美元）出租，约为地上居住成本的三分之一。
“Workers’ wages aren’t rising as fast as the cost of living,” said Xu Tong, who both rents out and lives in an underground space in eastern Beijing. “If you get rid of these basement units, where will the migrants live?”
住在北京东部地下室、也出租地下室的许彤（音）说：“工人工资没有生活成本涨得快。如果把地下室都取缔了，民工住哪儿？”
Government data shows that migrant workers’ wages increased about 14 percent in 2014 from a year earlier, compared with a nearly 22 percent increase in their cost of living.
政府数据显示2014年民工工资比上年增长14%，生活成本增长近22%。
Mr. Xu’s lease illustrates the uncertainty about how serious the government’s ban on underground dwellings is: Although the new rule takes effect in 2017, his contract does not expire until 2019.
许的出租行为显示政府是否严肃对待取缔地下居住是不确定的：尽管新法规将于2017年生效，他的合同到2019年才到期。
Migrant workers’ use of the former bomb shelters remains a delicate topic. After The New York Times submitted an interview request to the neighborhood committee, Mr. Zhou said, an official there who supports the project called him and recommended that he not mention the “floating population” or “northern drifters” — two euphemisms for migrant workers.
民工使用防空洞仍是敏感话题。《纽约时报》向居委会提出采访申请后，周子舒说支持这一项目的一个官员建议他不要提“移动人口”或“北漂”，这是对民工的两个委婉称谓。
So far, Digua Shequ’s work remains an exceptional case for having legally repurposed the spaces under the new rules. Currently, the Civil Air Defense Department of Beijing grants one-year leases on former bomb shelters to individuals and companies.
迄今为止，地瓜社区的工作仍是新规定下合法地重新规划空间的一个特例。目前，北京人防部门向个人和公司提供防空洞一年的出租合同。
The order to end residential use means that some stand to lose a source of revenue, as few local officials and landlords are willing to spend to transform the units into commercial spaces.
禁止居住意味着有些人会失去部分收入来源，很少有当地官员或房主愿意花钱将房子改造为商业用途。
As a result, many shelters and basements occupied before the ban was announced are still being quietly rented out as housing.
因此，许多禁令前有人住的防空洞和地下室仍在悄悄被当做住房出租。
“It’s like a wave,” said Wang Jinhui, who runs a hotel in a former bomb shelter near the Digua Shequ center. “You just put your head down and wait for it to pass.”
在地瓜社区附近的防空洞里经营一家酒店王金辉（音）说：“就是一波浪头，只要缩起脖子来，早晚会过去的。”
He has rented out the space since 1998 and is optimistic that the political will to enforce the new regulations will dissipate.
他从1998年开始就把空间租出去，他很乐观，认为推行新法规的政治意志终将消散。
“They’ve said they’d clean out these underground spaces for years and not succeeded,” Mr. Wang said. “It just might be that places like mine will survive.”
“他们说他们几年来清理地下空间，但并不成功。可能像我这样的就生存下来了。”分
Subletting underground spaces can be lucrative. A lease for an entire basement or shelter typically costs about 150,000 renminbi a year, but subdividing the space can generate far more income.
租地下空间利润丰厚。出租整个地下室或防控洞一般每年15万元左右，可分割空间后就会产生多得多的收入。
The shelter that Digua Shequ took over once housed more than 100 residents who together paid nearly 600,000 renminbi a year, Mr. Zhou said.
周说，地瓜社区改造的防控洞曾经有100个居民居住，每年租金接近60万元。
“A lot of landlords have spent money renovating the spaces they lease, so they don’t want to stop renting out basements,” said Guo Chengbao, a security guard who was once a basement landlord. He lives in an underground unit above the Digua Shequ center.
保安郭成宝（音）说：“许多房主花钱翻修后出租，他们不希望出租地下室被叫停。”郭也曾出租过地下室，他住在地瓜社区楼上的地下室中。
Private investors have also been eyeing underground spaces. Renovating the basement that now houses the Digua Shequ center cost nearly 3 million renminbi, most of which was covered by Feng Lun, the founder of Vantone Holdings and its real estate subsidiary, Vantone Real Estate.
私人投资者也瞄上了地下空间。改造地瓜社区所在的地下室耗费近300万元，多数由万通控股和房地产子公司万通地产的创始人冯仑投资。
“We’ve constructed a lot of buildings,” he said, “but there’s no one today who is operating underground spaces like this. If other real estate developers came and saw your space, they might invite you to develop their underground spaces during construction.”
“我们建了太多建筑，但今天还没人这样利用地下空间。如果其他地产开发商发现了这片空间，他们也会在建造中请你来开发地下空间。”冯仑说。
Mr. Zhou’s project was noticed by a sympathetic official and partly financed by the local and municipal governments as a promising model for Beijing’s other bomb shelters and basements.
一些富有同情心的官员注意到周的工程，区市政府还提供了部分资金，并将其视作北京其他防空洞和地下室的改造范本。
With the support of the neighborhood committee, Digua Shequ got a lease and is negotiating to turn another shelter in the Haidian district into a second community center.
有了居委会的支持，地瓜社区获得租约，现在正在谈把海淀区另一家防空洞改造成社区中心的项目。
“No one had a very nuanced understanding of these places,” Mr. Zhou said. “Every one thought only poor people lived in them and that they were dark and dirty.”
“没人对这些地方有特别到位的理解，大家都认为只有穷人住在这里，生存在黑暗和肮脏中。”周说。
Mr. Zhou tried several different models before arriving at his plan for the community center. At first, he ran a training program for young workers, but attendance was too inconsistent.
周尝试了很多不同模式，最后采用了建造社区中心的计划。一开始，他给年轻工人做培训，但来上课的人断断续续。
He considered turning basements into libraries but then observed that residents used similar areas as restrooms rather than as places for borrowing books.
他曾打算把地下室改造成图书馆，可后来发现居民把这样的地方当做休息室而并非来借书。
After studying theories about the sharing economy, Mr. Zhou hit on the idea of transforming basements into community centers.
研究了分享经济理论后，周想到将地下室改造成社区中心的主意。
The entrance to the Digua Shequ center is like that of any other bomb shelter: rusting metal gates at street level that open onto a ramp down into the chilly, subterranean darkness.
地瓜社区中心的入口和其他防空洞一样：大街旁生锈的铁门斜伸入冰冷黑暗的地下。
The ramp ends at a bright orange steel door set into mottled concrete, behind which lies the center’s warmly lit interior.
斜坡伸向一道亮橙色的钢门处，钢门嵌入斑斑驳驳的水泥，门后面就是暖洋洋的社区中心。
Renovations began on the shelter in 2015, after three years of surveying residents about what they wanted in a community center. When the new space opens on Friday, it will feature a 3-D printing station, co-working spaces and a movie theater.
经过对居民需求长达三年的调研，防空洞改造于2015年开始建造。新空间开放后，将有一个3D打印站，共同工作区和电影院。
Mr. Zhou said that underground dwellings might never be eliminated entirely because of the different interests at play, but that he hoped the Digua Shequ model would be replicated in other neighborhoods. He said he saw it as a chance to transcend differences in social class and origin.
周表示地下住宅可能不会完全被取缔，因为利益很多元，但他希望地瓜社区模式在更多地方生根。他认为这是超越社会阶层和出身差异的一个机会。
Mr. Guo, the security guard, likes what it has done so far. After work, he sometimes eats dinner in the community space.
保安小郭喜欢这一计划。工作后他有时会在社区里吃饭。
“I’ve lived in Beijing for 14 years. Before, I didn’t know any of the people who lived upstairs,” he said, laughing. “Now, we’re all familiar with each other.”
“我住在北京14年了，以前我从不认识住在地面上的人，现在我们彼此都很熟悉。”他笑着说。