What Shanghai keeps: the Bund's two facades and the 64 roads

Shanghai’s planners have a word for the Bund’s famous row of banks: the first facade (第一立面), the single line of buildings that faces the river. Everything behind it, as far west as Henan Road, is the second facade (第二立面). And across the old city there are 64 roads that, under a rule of 2007, may not be widened or narrowed.

These are three answers to one question: what has the city decided it will not change, and what does that mean for someone standing in the street?

Part 1, the first facade, follows the riverfront row from its first listing in 1989 to the 2010 tunnel that took eleven lanes of traffic off the Bund, and to the 2025 rule that nothing built behind it may break its outline.

Part 2, the second facade, walks the grid of 1850s streets behind the Bund: Chinese banks, the Council’s old headquarters, theatres and missions. It explains why the district calls it unfinished, and the block-by-block plan it now has.

Part 3, the 64 roads, explains what “never widened” means in law, much more than width, and lists every road with its protected section and its old French or English name, all on one map.

Read them in order, or start with whichever street you are standing on. The map below shows every place the three parts mention.