Lu Yuan Lu (麓苑路) is one of the most rapidly evolving streets in the Taojin area. 15 years ago it was lined by a few shops but mostly just walls, presenting a lifeless and uninteresting facade to passers-by. Over the last decade the situation has changed dramatically. The street still has sections lined by walls, but the addition of several highrise apartment blocks has led to an influx of people and pedestrians. This in turn has spurred new shops and services to be built, mostly adapted out of the ground floors of the older housing stock. Inevitably given the area has around 20,000 school students, businesses with an education or training function have tended to take up many of the available commercial land uses, but some offices have also moved in and the result is an interesting variety of land uses.
It's not yet a pedestrian paradise, though, with the street design not in line with the road function. The road functions overwhelming as a local access road with high pedestrian volumes, including children, but the design configuration with wide traffic lanes and no traffic calming is more like a thoroughfare for traffic. Still, the street network winds around, with narrow roads, and the topography is hilly, with all factors combined making for an increasingly attractive walking environment and interesting place to check out.
The local authorities have caught on, and while a decade ago nobody would have bothered, the street is now lined with carefully prepared and presented displays for passing pedestrians. The cache can be found in one of them.