Beijing still has many ancient neighborhoods known as "hutongs." The city's skyline is marked by countless new high-rise apartment complexes, but millions of residents live in the closely packed alleyways of the hutongs. These neighborhoods began as the homes of affluent imperial officials living just outside the Forbidden City. They were originally laid out as spacious walled courtyard dwellings similar to a Roman villa or a Spanish hacienda, but they gradually evolved into densely crowded neighborhoods consisting of small one-story buildings crowded around tiny twisting alleyways. Some of the hutongs remain much as they were in earlier times, but in a process that is familiar to Washingtonians some are being gentrified into comfortable up-scale homes, shops, and inns, while others are being bulldozed away to make way for new development. Our walk took us through several areas near the Forbidden City, including a tradtional hutong and one that is undergoing renovation.
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