Small Town China: Cruising Around Huangtu's Ecological Park

Huangtu is a small town within the city of Jiangyin that shares a map boundary with Changzhou and the district I live in. It's home to a relatively new ecological park that sometimes I like to ride my bike around and soak in the scenery.

There is an artificial beach here. 

Even though this place is like a year old, Baidu Map's satellites have yet to update their shots of the area. China grows that quickly....

The building in the above is a temple. A lot of the green space is underwater, and as you will see in  the next few pictures, the place looks absolutely nothing like what the map app suggests. 

Even though it's a year old, this area is still a work in progress. You still have fields of undeveloped dirt waiting for something to be done to them, whether it's planted trees, artificial, ponds, or whatever. 

All of this seems like a slightly idyllic getaway from urban China, right? Although this is not in Changzhou, but in the small town of Huangtu, it's still 15 kilometers from my home. Rural serenity sometimes is not an everlasting thing. This is China, and there is a long term plan in place. Here is a model of what developers want to build around this ecological park. 

So, 20 years from now, this area will absolutely not look the same as it does now.