In Wuhu, urban renewal has not only transformed the development process, but improved people’s lives.

During the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), urban renewal has served as a crucial measure to promote high-quality urban development and continuously meet people’s growing aspirations for a better life. Wuhu City, in central China’s Anhui Province, has consistently enhanced its urban functions and services to build a modern, people-oriented city that is innovative, livable, beautiful, resilient, civilized, and smart. 

“Wuhu’s urban renewal is not merely about the regeneration of urban space, but also the reshaping of urban functions, a leap in quality of life, a continuation of cultural memories, and a transformation of development drivers,” said Zhu Di’e, member of the Standing Committee of the Wuhu Municipal Party Committee and director of the Publicity Department. She told China Today that the government hopes to explore and establish a model of sustainable renewal that fosters multi-stakeholder participation from government, market, and society, thus creating a virtuous cycle to improve existing urban spaces and also upgrade the traditional industries and consumption. 

Local residents exercise in the Zhujiaqiao Tailwater Purification Ecological Park of Wuhu City, Anhui Province, on November 12, 2025. (Photo by Zhou Lin)  

Revitalizing the Old Shipyard

Stepping into the old Wuhu shipyard, the towering gantry cranes, vintage red-brick walls, and mottled old workshops all narrate the glory of yesteryear. Formerly known as the Fujiheng Machinery Factory, founded in 1900, the old shipyard boasts a history of 125 years. In June 2023, with the official launch of the renovation project for the shipyard site, this century-old industrial relic began its magnificent transformation. 

The 24-meter-high, 6,000-square-meter main workshop, after reinforcement and renovation, now presents itself to people as a brand-new public space, with a particularly trendy name: Xinchang REBOX, symbolizing rebirth from a cocoon. Vacant land has been transformed into a central park, while mechanical parts left over from shipbuilding have been repurposed into industrial sculptures, showcasing a dialogue between modernity and history.  

“We didn’t aim to create a mere commercial complex or tourist attraction, but rather positioned it as a new cultural and creative art landmark in the Yangtze River Delta and an urban micro-vacation destination,” said Wang Fangyou, a staff member of Wuhu Binjiang Cultural Tourism Investment and Operation Co., Ltd.  

In its long-term business planning, the company has introduced design studios, art galleries, live house music venues, themed bookstores, boutique coffee shops, and specialty restaurants. “These businesses, all possessing strong cultural and social attributes, in combination with the industrial-style spatial setting, highly resonate with young people’s aesthetic preferences,” added Wang. 

A special exhibition on the history of the old shipyard debuts at the Xinchang REBOX in Wuhu, Anhui Province, on November 13, 2025.

At present, Binjiang Cultural Tourism has already created three such adaptable spaces in Wuhu, including Xinchang REBOX, the Central Park, and the Binjiang Pier. Xinchang REBOX has been converted from a massive hull-structure workshop into a column-free immersive art exhibition space; while the Central Park has been transformed from old warehouses and vacant land into an open park that hosts music festivals and markets; and the towering shipway at the Binjiang Pier now serves as a viewing platform where visitors can overlook the river and enjoy glamorous fashion shows on the riverbank. 

“We have meticulously planned sustained activities such as art exhibitions, theater festivals, cultural and creative markets, and open-air movies, ensuring new content every week,” said Wang. 

Through preservation and renewal, the once abandoned “industrial rust belt” has been reborn as a “lifestyle show venue,” carrying Wuhu residents’ aspirations for a better life.   

The night view of the Binjiang Pier area where glamorous fashion shows and various other entertainment events are often held.  

An Eco-Park along the Yangtze River 

On the south bank of the Wuhu Yangtze River Rail-Road Bridge lies a vast expanse of water, edged by waterfront decks and strolling boardwalks, and dotted with fir trees – this is the Zhujiaqiao Tailwater Purification Ecological Park, a leisure and recreation spot for nearby residents, and an urban landscape where humans and nature coexist in harmony. 

“This land used to be an overgrown beach wetland. Today, the rehabilitated ecological conservation pond can handle up to 120,000 tons of tailwater daily,” Zhang Suicheng of Three Gorges Wuhu Water Management Company told China Today.  

The Zhujiaqiao Tailwater Purification Ecological Park on the south bank of the Wuhu Yangtze River Rail-Road Bridge.

In 2018, Wuhu became a pilot city for “protecting the Yangtze River with concerted efforts and avoiding large-scale development of the river,” an initiative launched for 11 provinces and municipalities along the Yangtze River Economic Belt. In that year, the Three Gorges Group signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the Wuhu government to conduct ecological restoration on this beach wetland, while integrating urban sewage treatment resources and exploring market-oriented operation mechanisms. Their collaboration has achieved multiple benefits, including tailwater purification, ecological conservation, and recreational opportunities for local residents. 

The park integrates the purification and reuse of tailwater from the wastewater treatment plant with the ecological restoration of tidal flats. An ecological conservation pond, approximately two meters deep, has been constructed, which preserved the original arbor species such as bald cypress and metasequoia, and restored the underwater ecosystem, allowing submerged plants like water shield and vallisneria to take root and grow, further improving water quality.  

“After advanced purification by the park, the tailwater quality has been upgraded from Grade I-A to Grade IV surface water standard, significantly reducing direct pollution discharge into the Yangtze River and protecting the river’s aquatic ecology at a high standard,” said Zhang. 

Zhang pointed to a subsurface flow constructed wetland in the park, which is the core zone for tailwater purification. “Above ground it looks like a sea of flowers,” he explained, “but beneath the surface lies a hidden secret.” Layers of volcanic rock and steel slag filler act as a giant “water-purifying cartridge,” forming an underground “purification factory.” Hundreds of millions of microorganisms have made their home here, working tirelessly as invisible cleaners that break down pollutants completely, allowing the tailwater to be “purified and sublimated” through natural processes. 

A sanitation worker skims  leaves and other floating debris from the lake in the Zhujiaqiao Tailwater Purification Ecological Park on November 13, 2025.

In the park, there is a fir grove covering approximately 0.4 hectares, one of Wuhu’s most popular winter check-in spots for Internet celebrities. Beneath this seemingly tranquil water surface hides a vibrant “underwater forest.” Delicate emerald plants such as foxtail and hornwort sway in the current. Their leaves soak up nitrogen, phosphorus and other nutrients directly from the water, combatting algae and keeping the water crystal clear. More importantly, photosynthesis turns the whole grove into a giant oxygen factory, pumping dissolved oxygen into the lake and creating a natural “oxygen bar” for fish, shrimp and snails. This dense underwater forest is the key to maintaining limpid water and a stable ecosystem. 

As the ecosystem has matured, the park now hosts a rich array of wildlife: second-class national-protected great egrets, third-class protected golden pheasants, turtledoves and many other species nest and breed here. Beyond cleaner water, the park has become a “happiness space” for the city’s residents. 

This project, combined urban renewal with ecological restoration, has turned the “gray space” beneath the Yangtze River Bridge into a state-of-the-art, tertiary water-purification facility built atop the existing sewer network. Transformed from abandoned grassland, foul ponds and tangled woods, it now unites ecological, social and economic benefits in one landscape.  

According to official data, the park injects almost 43 million cubic meters of revitalized water into surrounding rivers every year, saving the city RMB 3.5 million in costs. Its waterfront decks and boardwalks have become must-visit photo spots, drawing more than three million visitors annually.

Endangered “Smiling Angel” Reappears 

Where China’s eastward-rushing “Mother River” bends at Wuhu, it forms a ten-mile south-northward “Shili Jiangwan” (Ten-mile River Bay). Once a chaotic strip crowded with scattered docks and ramshackle boatyards, it was the very image of a dirty, disorderly shoreline. 

Powered by the national strategy of protecting the Yangtze River, Wuhu has made urban renewal its priority and invested RMB 2.4 billion in an ecological upgrading project for the Shili Jiangwan that knits flood control needs seamlessly with habitat restoration. The result is a single, continuous landscape made up of three distinct zones: a levee landscape area, a re-naturalized tidal flat, and a forested wetland, bringing the vision of “giving the river, shoreline, and scenery back to the people” into reality. 

A ten-mile south-northward “Shili Jiangwan” (Ten-mile River Bay) on the Yangtze River in Wuhu, Anhui Province.

Today the Shili Jiangwan has shed its shabby past and emerged as a showpiece ribbon of shoreline, which is ecologically beautiful and people-friendly. The 10.4-kilometer riverside boardwalk now hosts morning tai-chi groups, evening strollers and camera-toting visitors, offering them an immersive, up-close encounter with the Yangtze River. 

“The river is clearer, the banks are greener, and the finless porpoises are back!” a Wuhu resident surnamed Zhao told China Today. “If you’re lucky you can watch pods of three or five chasing [each other] and playing right here.” 

Known as the “smiling angels” of the Yangtze River, finless porpoises demand pristine conditions, and even small increases in underwater noise or pollutants can disrupt their breeding. Since the river’s ten-year fishing ban was launched, the change has been dramatic: the swarm of little fishing boats once crisscrossing the surface has vanished, and the gill-nets that hugged the banks are gone. Fish stocks are rebounding and porpoise sightings, once rare, are now frequent. 

Strolling the riverbank, visitors have the mighty, rolling river on one side and a jagged skyline of towers on the other, a place that carries Wuhu’s Yangtze River memories while showcasing the city’s modern pulse.  

“Urban renewal not only signifies a transformation of development models, but is also closely linked to the improvement of people's wellbeing,” said Zhu Di’e. She enumerated the achievements made in Wuhu’s urban renewal during the 14th Five-Year Plan period.  

Flagship projects such as the creative makeover of the old shipyard have turned disused industrial sites into magnets for tech start-ups, cultural incubators and pop-up curators. Scores of “pocket parks” and the “Scholarly Wuhu” mini-libraries show the city’s attraction for “small yet beautiful” investments that deliver high returns in quality of life. By weaving a 15-minute green-life circle in which residents are never more than 300 meters from greenery or 500 meters from a park, Wuhu has both showcased its signature landscape of “interlaced hills and water” and satisfies people’s aspirations for a better life.