Beijing Announces Plans to Demolish Illegal Buildings
By Justine Lopez
Beijing is cracking down on illegal buildings in the city. On Monday we reported that hundreds of underground bunkers located near Tiananmen Square had recently been demolished. But this isn’t an isolated incident.
The city government recently announced plans to destroy 40 million square meters of illegal structures by the end of this year, CCTV reports. These buildings include residences, rentals and production facilities. Beijing began its new initiative by demolishing a 200,000-square-meter complex located in Haidian last week.
This is just one of many steps the capital is taking to deal with overcrowding in the city. In the past year the government has made plans to move the elderly outside of Beijing to neighboring provinces, relocate administrative centers to Tongzhou, and forced thousands of “non-essential” businesses to close or move outside of the city.
So far over 1,300 factories and at least 300 markets have been closed or relocated from the city center.
By tearing down the city’s many illegal structures, Beijing is also hoping that future development will be properly controlled and planned out, which will help with efforts to cap the population and relieve the capital's notorious congestion.
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