Li Jing

    I RETURNED to my hometown of Wuhan during the Spring Festival holidays and saw a city filled with construction.

    From the Wuhan Railway Station, after a high-speed train ride from Guangzhou, I took a one-hour taxi journey through Wuhan’s southern Wuchang District to my parents’ home in northern Hankou District.

    The trip showed me endless construction sites, which were quiet because of the holidays but signaled a rapidly growing city.

    Wuhan is the largest city in Central China and capital of Hubei Province. The city made national headlines last year when its top leader pledged to push ahead with a massive construction program despite storms of criticism and opposition.

    In all, there are more than 5,700 construction projects under way in Wuhan, which has a population of 9 million.

    Ruan Chengfa, Wuhan Party chief and dubbed “Mr. Digging Around the City,” has said he would continue to push his construction policies in coming years, although some online netizens have blamed him for making people’s lives inconvenient.

    “I am afraid Ruan’s words could not satisfy all,” said Wang Bing, a professor specializing in environmental values at Huazhong University of Science and Technology. He added that the city’s swift economic development might not contribute to the well-being of citizens.

    But others say the rapid growth must continue.

    “Though it is painful to push ahead, we cannot slow down the pace of construction,” Wu Xinmu, head of Regional Development Research Institute of Wuhan University, has countered. He has noted that China is still a developing country and has to promote infrastructure construction.