Official decries district's 'face lift' project

BEIJING - A district government has undertaken an "extravagant face lift" in a Changsha neighborhood by putting paint on outdoor walls or covering them with decorative tiles, repaving roads and replacing fences with steel rails, charges a former Party official.

Zhu Shangtong, who retired as deputy secretary of the Changsha Party committee in Central China's Hunan province 23 year ago, posted a public letter online on Tuesday, saying the government is "pursuing quick success at the cost of the public interests".

"The local government is only thinking about how to make the city look good quickly enough to win in an impending competition to be deemed a 'civilized city'," Zhu told China Daily on Monday.