Editor's note: Why build an old street? Perhaps, the reason is not only because of the thickness of history...
Almost every city, especially one with a long history and cultural heritage, tends to have one or even several old streets (blocks).
How to make the old street not old, keep pace with the times, and rejuvenate the new spring, the key is to highlight the characteristics, take care of the style, and create the core competitiveness of their own old street according to local conditions.
The old street has brought popularity, vitality, business opportunities, traffic, and finally the infinite possibilities of embracing the times...
Millennium Mule Horse Road, Xiangchuyu Backstreet.
In Yuhou Street, Chenzhou City, you can see the imprint left by the wheel of history rolling forward, and you can also see the reflection of modern civilization.
Here, it is noisy, all night carnival, but also quiet, walking on the bluestone slabs, admiring the scenery, listening to the ancient legends from the folk. Here, it is also full of honors, and in the past year, it has been rated as a provincial-level historical and cultural block, a provincial-level tourism and leisure block, and a provincial-level demonstration pedestrian street. Honored and crowned, forge ahead. Why is Yuhou Street in Chenzhou City, which was once in decline, repeatedly glowing now?
Grasp literature and history and shape a new highland of humanities
Yuhou Street, which began in the Qin and Han dynasties, has a history of more than 2,200 years and has been a prosperous place for merchants and merchants since ancient times. In 2008, the Chenzhou Municipal Party Committee and the Chenzhou Municipal Government launched the construction of the Yuhou Street Historical and Cultural Block, in accordance with the principle of "respecting history and repairing the old as old", retaining the traditional style of shonan houses in the block, and building Yuhou Street into a historical and cultural block integrating entertainment, commerce, leisure and residence.
Walk around Yuhou Street, you can see that within and around the protection area of the block, multi-level cultural relics protection units, red tourist attractions, and cultural landscapes are scattered among them. In the streets and alleys, every attraction has a story behind it. For example, there are the tombs of the Nantaling martyrs in which the heroic and fearless martyrs are located; there are the Cultural Relics Protection Units Chen Family House and the Li Family House that played an important role in the revolution; there are also the Hualong Bridge, Qingshu Bridge, and the rhinoceros well formed by the rhinoceros that fell at the bottom of the well due to the protection of Chenzhou in the legend of folk love; there are also many historical and cultural landscapes such as Zhou Dunyi Statue, Qu Yuan Statue, Mule Horse Ancient Road Sculpture, etc.
Night view of Yuhou Street in Chenzhou City.
Every Time the Mid-Autumn Festival, Lantern Festival and other traditional Chinese festivals, these stories and landscapes empower Yuhou Street, doubling down on the glow, attracting tourists and citizens to gather here. In 2021, Yuhou Street has accumulated more than 30 large and small activities, including "New Year's Day Intangible Cultural Heritage Festival", "Golden Bull Blessing and Happy Lantern Festival", "Rice Dumplings enjoy a hundred years, Yuhou Gifts", "Mid-Autumn Festival Garden Party" and other activities, with the highest passenger flow of more than 50,000 people in a single day.
Adhering to the "history and culture +" strategy, Chenzhou City finds the "ecological niche" of the old street, digs deep into the history and culture of the thousand-year-old street, and creates a high-quality pedestrian street with historical memory, cultural context and regional characteristics. In front of the rhino well in the center of Yanhe Street, with the story of Su Tan crossing the crane and ascending the immortals in "The Legend of Su Xian" as the background, the theme of "Su Tan Cross Crane" was added to brighten the landscape; the introduction board of "The Legend of Su Xian" was also erected to spread the unique filial piety and Traditional Chinese medicine culture; and the construction of an intangible cultural corridor to show the history and customs of Yuhou Street in the form of pictures and texts.
The theme of "Su Tan Cross Crane" brightens the landscape.
Grasp the chapter system and build a safe consumption circle
Overlooking the entire Yuhou Street, the block goes up along the river, the Shonan ancient residential style buildings are orderly, green brick tiles, wood carved flower windows, flowing eaves, bluestone slab roads dotted among them, the block as a whole is "fishbone-shaped", the main street and auxiliary streets are clearly positioned, clearly functioned, coordinated and complementary.
In the early years, however, the appearance of Yuhou Street was very different from what it is now. A merchant in the neighborhood described to Guan Chaojun the scene when he first opened the store, which was quite touching, "Not only is the traffic small, but the only thing that can be illuminated in the block at night is the lights in front of his own store." ”
How did Yuhou Street become what it is today? Perhaps, from its transformation process, we can know a little bit.
"Planning and Design of Yuhou Street Historical and Cultural Block" sorts out the spatial structure of Yuhou Street's "two streets, six lanes, four districts and multiple points", determines the overall transformation style, and embarks on the stage of old city transformation and block renewal. Subsequently, the "Chenzhou Yuhou Street Historical and Cultural Block Transformation and Upgrading Plan (2020-2022)" clarified the future development positioning of the block, with culture as the soul, commerce as the leading, tourism as the carrier, to build a new commercial pattern of "one river on both sides, two towers and one street", and to create a first-class historical and cultural and humanistic leisure characteristics of the commercial pedestrian block with the charm of the millennium Shonan.
From the overall planning and layout, optimizing the block environment, improving commercial quality, creating a smart block, promoting the integration of culture, commerce and tourism, standardizing management and operation, etc., clear goals were put forward and tasks were refined, thus entering a stage of high-quality development.
In 2013, the Yuhou Street Historical and Cultural District Management Committee was established, fully dressed up as a "guide" and "waiter". The joint trade union established by the management committee organized by the merchants in the neighborhood stimulated the internal motivation of the merchants' autonomy, allowed the merchants to play the main role in the management of the block, and gradually formed a good governance situation of "self-discipline, dedication, co-governance and sharing" in Yuhou Street.
In the vicinity of the Yuhou Street Management Committee, morning glory, bougainvillea climb the rock wall, bloom everywhere, fat and lovely succulents bloom like petals, planting fruits in addition to the unified planning of Yuhou Street, as well as skillful flower sales, green planters. The entire block, the green coverage rate of more than 20%, high and low collocation, staggered climbing wall, vines, shrubs, potted plants and other plants are already a beautiful landscape.
Today's Yuhou Street, giving glory to the people of Chenzhou, has become a characteristic business card of the Pearl City of Shonan.
Focusing on the traffic road network, façade ground, facilities and equipment, greening and lighting and other elements, in 2021, a total of more than 2 million yuan was invested to strengthen the transformation and upgrading of the block, optimize public service facilities, etc., and build a high-quality living and tourism environment in Yuhou Street.
Grasp the quality and create a demonstration model street
How to create a demonstration model? The builders of Chenzhou City follow the "quality" thinking.
In December 2021, Abea opened its second store on Yuhou Street. The new storefront was built along the river, the scale has been expanded a lot, and the exquisite Italian cuisine has attracted many people to come. "Yuhou Street is the origin of The Pretty Bella and a blessed place. It is hoped that it will be deeply rooted here and bring more food to the tourists. Talking about the business environment of Yuhou Street, the person in charge of Bella praised it.
On the outer wall of The Pretty Bella, there is a row of Ciao Yuhou composed of Italian and Pinyin, which refers to both The Pretty Bella and yuhou Street, which achieve mutual achievements and common development. Inside the store, green plants can be seen everywhere, from another merchant on the street: a flower room.
In December 2020, Yihua Yi Room moved to a new store a few dozen meters apart, and the scale was tripled, plus the second floor.
Yihua Yi Room mainly sells green plants and succulents, and many green plants on the street are from the skillful hands of the store's head, Shou Wenzhi. "In Yuhou Street, it's like living a slow life in the city, accompanied by flowers and grass music, IKEA." Shou Wenzhi, who chose to start a business in Yuhou Street, not only achieved this, but also decorated Yuhou Street, adding infinite vitality.
The wonderful Yuhou Street, the ecological layout is constantly improving, and the commercial quality is also rising. Antique shops, guzheng, jade carving, tea houses and other antique businesses and bars, coffee dessert shops, immersive experience and other "net red" emerging formats are combined here, in the proportion of block formats, catering and cuisine accounted for 32.6%, leisure and entertainment, shopping, culture and sports, new music, intangible cultural heritage display and other formats accounted for 67.4%, forming a "food, travel, shopping, entertainment, sports, exhibition, performance" diversified consumer market, successfully solved the problems of "punching card without swiping card", "having face, no lizi".
Click on the "Meet Yuhou Street" public account, the smart business district, Yuhou community, activity promotion, and featured stores are "one-click checkable", and the timely and efficient feedback mechanism has greatly improved the quality of the block. In recent years, we have built a smart block, achieved full coverage of WiFi connections in the block, established a tourist data management system, comprehensively provided services such as video surveillance, tourist statistics, crowd control, environmental monitoring, and capacity announcement, and used big data technology to strengthen consumer interaction and operation monitoring, and comprehensively improve the level of intelligent services.
The collision of "classical and new wave", the strong gathering of business formats, the unique diversity of brands, and the all-weather and all-round intelligent service have formed a unique business atmosphere of Yuhou Street.
A view of Yuhou Street at night.
At present, the Yuhou Street Supporting Construction Area (Phase II) is under construction. "Fully excavate the history and culture, combined with the 'Chenzhou 8:30, the night sky is the brightest' project, around the construction of the waterfront cultural tourism block, exquisite planning and construction of the second phase of the river east bank project." Hou Zhenglin, director of the Yuhou Street Management Committee of Chenzhou City, said that the second phase should continue the architectural style of the core area of the first phase, take the "shonan ancient residence" as the keynote, and integrate the traditional cultural characteristics and regional style of Chenzhou, expand the size of the block, improve the supporting facilities, and make up for the shortcomings of the first phase of development.
Phase I + Phase II, in the promotion of the integrated development of "history and culture + business + tourism" in Yuhou Street, how to make up for the shortcomings and develop in the same position is worth looking forward to.
"Cities are alive, so when we get to know a city, we always ask about the origin of the city. Some cities have left no traces of childhood, their history only exists in empty written records, and some of them are alive to this day - this is the old street in the city. ”
——Feng Jicai, "The Meaning of Old Street"