The newly established public spaces as part of the embankment project being implemented during 2019 into 2022 operate as a kind of extended living room for residents in Xinzhou. These dense villages previously had no public squares or spaces for community congregation, unlikely many other urban villages which at least had communal spaces around some lakes, ancestral halls and plazas.
The embankments are built high above the community level presumably for flood control purposes and this has the effect of providing views from the walkway along the river down into the village, including into some living rooms deliberately left open to the elements facing the river. Meanwhile the embankment is set back from the buildings, providing a flexible public space directly linked to the new embankment walkway as well as the community interior.
With highrise development seemingly inevitably approaching it's hard to predict how long the fishing village and it's excellent new waterfront public space will last, but the embankment walkway at least is clearly here to stay.