The Suburbs: Hungjao Road

Hungjao Road (now Hongqiao Lu) was the favored address for westerners wealthy enough to afford to escape the congestion of the city center. The road was lined with elegant villas set in extensive grounds, homes of  the owners or managers of such firms as Jardine and Matheson and Arnhold and Company. With the widening of the main road, which now as then leads to the airport, their front gardens are gone and their facades nakedly visible to every passing pedestrian.
The homes of the less wealthy fared better. Such suburban garden complexes as the Granada Estates and Holly Heath still lie somewhat removed from the current traffic melee, although the former is now a guest house, the latter a hospital complex. One of the former drawing cards of the area, a nine-hole golf course belonging to a private club, is now the Shanghai Zoo.