"Actually, the pace of the changes has already exceeded anybody's imagination," Zhang said, whose office is located exactly at the core of the district. "Thanks to the enormous amount of money plunged into this area, everything looks better every day. After all, money talks here."

Zhang recalled that before China won the bid to hosting the 2008 Olympic Games in 2001, the district was blurred with shabby makeshift houses and muddy alleys.

"It was a typical zone joining town and country where low-income migrant people concentrated, and the crime rate here was higher than other places," Zhang said.

But in just a few years, the slums have disappeared and awesome Olympic venues are standing up. Construction workers are laying asphalt for 20-plus new roads and digging into the earth for two metro lines that will run across the district.

"The key factors in good living conditions here will improve a lot before 2008, and the residents living in neighbouring areas, including those in the Haidian and Chaoyang districts, will also benefit a lot from the facelift," Zhang observed.

Yin Weihong, an associate professor with the Beijing Union University participating in the survey, said the central Olympic district and the so-called pan-Olympic regions have great potential for improvement in living conditions.

Local residents also expressed their confidence in the prospect of this area in the survey.

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