Cafes, shops and more: China ramps up urban upgrades

Authorities inject new life into villages to attract visitors and drive up consumption

- Aw Cheng Wei

CHONGQING - A pink entryway decorated with neon lights, stars and a rainbow greets visitors to Minzhu Village — home to some 8,000 residents in south-western Chongqing municipality.

Many visitors are drawn by the village's affordable meals, cheap haircuts and trendy tea houses and cafes. Lunchtime queues are long, with a wait of up to 20 minutes, as nearby office workers visit the village's canteen to eat.

Such crowds were unthinkable just a few years ago, before the village underwent refurbishment, said Mr Huang Chunchu, 65, who grew up in the village built in the 1950s.

Mr Huang, who is now retired, told The Straits Times: "Minzhu Village was shabby and quite lifeless."

Minzhu Village, which started upgrading works in 2022, is part of a renewed push across China to refresh residential areas in a bid to drive consumption in the world's second-largest economy. In Chongqing alone, renovation work started in 2,620 residential compounds in 2024, according to local media reports.

Held up as a success case, Minzhu Village hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping when he visited Chongqing in April 2024. Mr Huang said that "about a hundred shops, including all the stalls in the wet market, and tea houses, cafes and restaurants have been added to the village".

In China, urban renewal projects have gained new urgency as Beijing makes boosting domestic demand its top priority for 2025 amid the trade war with the United States. But getting people to spend has been a challenge amid a "consumption downgrade", arising from an expected slowdown in the global economy due to geopolitical tensions.