SHENZHEN is considering applying to the Central Government to list Zhongying Street in Shatoujiao in Yantian District as a State-level cultural heritage site.
“City officials have discussed the matter with officials of the Ministry of Construction in an unofficial way,” Xu Zhongping, head of the city’s urban planning development research center, said at an ecology forum held in Hong Kong on Saturday. “The Central Government also thought that the street is valuable. However, the Shenzhen government will need to discuss and coordinate with the Hong Kong government with regard to how to proceed.”
Darwin Leung, vice head of the Hong Kong Planning Department, said if the application was approved, it could help stimulate the economy in Shatoujiao and promote local tourism.
The Hong Kong government will substantially reduce the size of a 28-square-kilometer restricted area along the border with the mainland, freeing up the biodiverse area for natural conservation, cultural heritage and tourism purposes. However, Zhongying Street was not included in the plan and risked failing to benefit from opportunities brought about by the new move.
Famous for being “one street with two systems,” the 250-meter-long Zhongying Street has been listed as one of the top eight sightseeing spots in Shenzhen. It was the product of a treaty signed by China and the United Kingdom in 1898 and once divided British-controlled Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland. Eight boundary stones still divide the street, indicating what was once the border.
A shopping paradise in the 1980s and 1990s, the street lost its former commercial glory with Shenzhen’s rapid economic development and has been redesigned as a site of historical interest.
(SD News)