China News Service, Guangzhou, November 6 (Reporter Cai Minjie) How can an old district be updated without major demolition and construction? Huadu District, Guangzhou City is renovating the old neighborhoods of Guangzhou North Railway Station. It is promoting the hardware renovation and service improvement of 126 old neighborhoods through small-scale and gradual renovation. It has added about 1,300 parking spaces, revitalized historical buildings, continued the Lingnan context, and formed an organic renewal sample that can be replicated and promoted.
The reporter learned from the Housing and Urban-Rural Development Bureau of Guangzhou Huadu District on the 6th that at the 2026 World Cities Day Urban Sustainable Development Global Conference recently held in Shanghai, Guangzhou Huadu District's "Road to Sustainable and Organic Renewal of the Old Neighborhoods of Guangzhou North Railway Station" was selected into the 2026 "Shanghai Manual" and exchanged and shared.
According to reports, the World Cities Day Urban Sustainable Development Global Conference is organized by the Shanghai Municipal People's Government and the United Nations Habitat. It is an international exchange platform in the field of urban sustainable development. Representatives of cities from many countries, international organization officials, experts and scholars conduct high-end dialogues around urban sustainable development.
Huadu District is located in the north of Guangzhou City. Liuxi River in the east and Bajiang River (Baini River) in the west meet the Pearl River in the south. Huadu Port ships have direct access to Hong Kong and Macao. Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport, located in Huadu District, is one of the three major aviation hubs in China, and Guangzhou North Railway Station is an important hub node in the intercity railway network of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
Once upon a time, most of the buildings in the Guangzhou North Railway Station area were built from the late 1960s to the early 1990s. The buildings were generally short and old, with a high vacancy rate. The streets were narrow and crowded, making parking and travel difficult. There was a serious lack of public green space and service facilities for “elderly and young” residents.
Chang Jiang Qi of the Guangzhou Huadu District Housing and Urban-Rural Development Bureau said that in recent years, the district has adopted a small-scale, progressive, and sustainable renewal direction to solve people's livelihood problems such as aging facilities, insufficient supporting facilities, and weak governance in old urban areas. The Guangzhou North Railway Station contiguous old neighborhood renovation project has been used as a pilot to explore innovative independent renewal models.
Focusing on the bottom line of people's livelihood, Huadu District promotes the hardware renovation and service improvement of 126 old communities in the area, improves the living conditions of more than 8,000 residents, and simultaneously improves basic guarantees such as water supply, power supply, gas, and fire protection. At the same time, it revitalizes idle land to build future innovative vertical communities, adds about 1,300 parking spaces in the area, and builds pocket parks in corner areas to maximize the value of existing space.
In addition, we should highlight characteristic development, restore and revitalize historical buildings, and protect and inherit the Lingnan cultural heritage. The area on the east side of Guangzhou North Railway Station revitalizes historical buildings such as Xinhua Square by "restoring the old as before", retaining stylistic elements such as blue bricks and red tiles, clear brick walls, and carved window lattice, and introducing projects such as gray sculptures and gold-embroidered skirts and coats to create a "celebration + intangible cultural heritage" neighborhood and reintegrate the memory of the old market into daily life.
In terms of capital operation bottlenecks, Jiang Qi said that Huadu District has established management funds, introduced market-oriented professional operating entities, and used operating income to feed back the management and maintenance of the area, achieving a sound and sustainable operation of "low government investment, good employment for the people, and small profits for the enterprises."
Currently, urban development is shifting from incremental expansion to stock improvement. Jiang Qi said that he will continue to deepen the multi-modal integrated urban renewal reform, continue to improve urban functions, improve the quality of human settlements, and continue to summarize and refine renewal experience that can be replicated and promoted.
