In the heart of Shanghai, the era of hand-held chamber pots is finally over. By the end of September 2025, the city announced it had flushed out the last 14,082 households relying on these makeshift toilets as part of a sweeping urban renewal campaign. 🚽✨
For decades, cramped lanes and Shikumen houses forced residents to carry small buckets to public toilets, facing winter numbness, summer odor, and rainy-day chaos. But this year, everything changed.
Pengpu New Village in Jing’an District symbolizes that transformation. Originally built in the 1950s, the neighborhood just finished a long-awaited makeover. Residents returned in June 2025 to find private bathrooms in every home, plus modern amenities: a community canteen, a nursing home, a swimming pool, and gyms. 🏘️🏊♀️
“Everything looks the same, yet everything has changed. We almost thought we’d come to the wrong place,” said residents who moved back earlier this year.
Zhang Cuiying, a longtime Pengpu resident, recalls: “Before dawn, we had to go out with our chamber pot and queue at the public toilet. My hands went numb in winter, the smell was awful in summer, and rainy days were the worst.”
The campaign, launched district by district since 2005, involved demolishing old housing and rebuilding vertical communities with private kitchens and baths. Zhou Xing’an, Party chief of the Fuxingdao neighborhood in Yangpu District, even carries a tape measure everywhere: “To fit a toilet and shower into these tight spaces, we fight for every centimeter.” 📏
A standout success story is 84-year-old Ms. Yan, who relied on a chamber pot for nearly half a century. After careful inspections, officials found space in a tiny storage room adjoining her kitchen. Today, she enjoys a shared family bathroom like her neighbors.
Huang Yong’an of Hongkou District set the tone by being the first to open his new bathroom to skeptical neighbors. “After I finished, people came by, took photos, and saw it didn’t shrink my living space,” he said. Soon, even the most vocal opponents asked for their own upgrades.
Shanghai’s push reflects a national drive under the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025). According to the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, over 240,000 old communities were updated, benefiting 110 million people with new elevators, parking and care facilities.
Looking ahead, recommendations for the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) aim to keep cities people-centered, ensuring the next generation enjoys modern, sustainable urban life. For Shanghai, saying goodbye to the chamber pot era is just the beginning. 🌆
Reference(s):
Shanghai flushes out chamber pots as urban renewal gathers pace
cgtn.com
