9. The Merger: Zhabei Becomes History (2015)
That day
On 13 October 2015 the State Council approved the abolition of Zhabei and Jing'an districts and the creation of a new Jing'an District.
On 4 November 2015 the Shanghai municipal party committee and government held a working conference and formally announced the "abolish two, create one" of the Zhabei and Jing'an districts.
At the Shanghai government's working conference, the then party secretary Han Zheng put it this way:
Carrying out this adjustment of the administrative divisions of Zhabei and Jing'an is a major matter concerning Shanghai's long-term development. We must seize this good opportunity to push Jing'an District's economic and social development to a new level from a new starting point.
Nothing in the press release said which district absorbed which — the formulation was "the two district administrations are abolished and a new Jing'an District is established". But objectively, 7.62 km² of Jing'an plus 29.19 km² of Zhabei = 37.37 km² of new Jing'an, and the name of the new district carried on the name "Jing'an".
Huang Yuan, speaking at a reading club for the Shanghai-Style Culture Map series, is blunt:
It was not until 4 November 2015, when the Shanghai municipal government announced the merger of Jing'an and Zhabei, that the merged district carried on the name "Jing'an" …
Why these two districts
The official explanation has three points (see the report reproduced by the Tianjin Municipal Bureau of Planning and Natural Resources):
- It helps raise the efficiency of administration, reflecting the "streamlined, efficient" requirements of administrative reform;
- It helps optimise the city's functional layout, coordinating resources, industrial planning and functional layout over a larger area and achieving complementary strengths;
- It helps raise the overall level of public services in the area, promoting the radiation northward of high-quality resources from south of Suzhou Creek, speeding up social programmes and infrastructure, and advancing the equalisation of public services in the central districts.
Point three is the most concrete: Jing'an's high-quality resources (education, health, commerce) were to radiate north across Suzhou Creek.
The "temperament gap" between the two districts
The merger provoked so much discussion because the two districts' characters were so far apart:
| Jing'an | Zhabei | |
|---|---|---|
| Area (before 2015) | 7.62 km², Shanghai's smallest district | 29.19 km² |
| Name from | Jing'an Temple (a temple) | a water sluice |
| History | nearly 800 years | under 400 years |
| Identity | Shanghai's "high, foreign, upmarket" quarter | a Chinese-administered industrial zone, old shantytowns |
| Economy | 2014 GDP per head 41,726.11 US dollars, the highest per-head GDP of any district or county in the city | towards the rear of the central districts |
| The word for it | "foreign-flavoured" | "swaggering" |
One born nearly 800 years ago, one under 400; one named after a temple, one after a sluice; they do not even share a land border, looking at each other across Suzhou Creek. (Huang Yuan)
The two areas "could not possibly develop at the same pace; their styles differed, their images differed, their characters differed, their functional positioning and industrial structures were utterly unlike, and the popular cultural psychology and habits of life each had their own manner".
But Huang Yuan also stressed something crucial:
Jing'an and Zhabei … are in fact one continuous line in their inner genes and spirit. Jing'an has the elegant heritage of old Shanghai; Zhabei holds much of old Shanghai's historical memory.
This was not the "first time"
Worth noting: Zhabei and Jing'an had in fact already merged once before, and separated again.
Looking back over the administrative history of Shanghai's central districts, a clear line of convergence appears:
| Time | Adjustment |
|---|---|
| 1928 | Zhabei is transferred to the city of Shanghai and renamed a district (along with Pengpu District, among China's first batch of district-level administrative bodies) |
| 1947 | Zhabei and Beizhan districts each renamed |
| 1956 | Zhabei and Beizhan districts merge as Zhabei District |
| 2000 | Huangpu District + Nanshi District → new Huangpu District |
| 2009 | Nanhui District merged into Pudong New Area |
| 2011 | Luwan District + Huangpu District → new Huangpu District |
| 2015 | Zhabei District + Jing'an District → new Jing'an District |
| 2016 | Chongming county abolished and made a district |
In other words, in 1956 Zhabei absorbed Beizhan once, and in 2015 it was absorbed by Jing'an once. The difference is that in 1956 it kept its name, and in 2015 it lost it.
After the merger
In numbers
- The new district covers 37.37 km² and administers 13 sub-districts and 1 town;
- Its resident population reaches the million mark, and its registered population is about a million;
- In 2015, with the merger completed, the two districts' combined general public budget revenue was 19.437 billion yuan, up 12.5% year on year;
- Total retail sales of consumer goods were 58.169 billion yuan, up 6.2%;
- Total fixed-asset investment was 28.19 billion yuan, up 20.5%;
- 11,691 households benefited from old-town renewal.
Jing'an District thus overtook Huangpu and Hongkou at a stroke, rising two places in the ranking of Shanghai's districts by area.
The name changed all the same
The name "Zhabei" did not enter the new district's name. This is probably the sorest point for many old Zhabei people.
But there are two sides to it. Objectively, although the district's name disappeared, almost all the place names beneath it were kept:
- The eight sub-districts — Tianmu West Road, Beizhan, Baoshan Road, Zhijiang West Road, Gonghexin Road, Daning Road, Pengpu Xincun and Linfen Road — remain as administrative bodies;
- The town of Pengpu is retained;
- Not one road name was changed: Gonghexin Road, Gonghe Road, Guangfu Road, Jinyuan Road, Qiujiang Road, Baoshan Road, Moling Road, Hanzhong Road, Menggu Road … all still there.
So if you look today, "Zhabei" no longer exists as an administrative district, but as a geographical and cultural concept "Zhabei" is still everywhere.
A kind footnote: two parks named after districts
After the merger there was a rather charming result:
Zhabei Park and Jing'an Park are both five-star parks, named respectively after the former Jing'an District and the former Zhabei District, which makes Jing'an District the only administrative district in Shanghai with two parks named after districts.
In other words, although "Zhabei District" is gone, the name "Zhabei Park" has remained — the park is still called Zhabei. This is perhaps the best way the city could find to lay to rest a vanished district name.
In short
- The State Council approved on 13 October 2015, and Shanghai announced it on 4 November: the Zhabei and Jing'an district administrations were abolished and a new Jing'an District created.
- The new district covers 37.37 km², administers 13 sub-districts and 1 town, and carries on the name "Jing'an".
- Of the official three reasons, the core one is: to let the high-quality resources south of Suzhou Creek radiate north.
- Zhabei's name vanished from the administrative map, but its place names, road names and sub-district structures were by and large kept intact.
The chronicle ends here. In the three parts that follow we bring the camera in close — beginning with the eight sub-districts and one town on the ground of today's Zhabei.