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08 Jul 2008 • 191 views

Cities For Sale

This culturally-important pagoda in London's Chinatown is in danger, following a corporate company's takeover of a nearby building when the previous - Chinese - owners went bust. It used to be home to independent Chinese traders, but the new owners have no Chinese connections. They plan to build a new Chinese-themed shopping mall known as the "Chinatown Gateway", with the pagoda moving to become the centrepiece of the new mall.

Read the full story here.

And if you are interested in how big business is ruining England's character, I would definitely recommend Paul Kingsnorth's excellent book Real England: The Battle Against The Bland.

camera	Canon EOS 40D
exposure mode	unknown
shutterspeed	1/100s
aperture	f/4.5
sensitivity	ISO160
focal length	38.0mm
resolution	565x800 pixels

Cities For Sale

comments (2)

Marcie

United States

8 Jul 2008, 00:50

It's such a sad story behind this pagoda. It is such a cultural icon. T'would be a shame to take away.
Love the colors in this image.

kim

Great Britain (UK)

15 Jul 2008, 10:44

I remember signing the petition to keep this pagoda ages ago! If they relocate it to the mall it will likely lose its 'feng shui'.

Also, Oriental City in Colindale finally closed - it was a great place for shopping, with a food court serving up cheap Asian dishes from all over. I hope the new mall will have that kind of character, as you don't get that sort of thing in London. (Luckily Wing Yip, the Oriental supermarket chain, has started putting a few independent restaurants and shops in its complexes.

Hopefully the mall won't be just your typical faceless downmarket type.

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