Staying at home most of the time, it was rare to venture out during the Qingming holiday in 2026. I wandered into Wenhui Road in Songjiang University Town, and my first thought wasn’t about the scenery, but about the shops.
Good sales are nothing new; they’ve sprung up everywhere in Shanghai over the years. What really caught me off guard was seeing 零食很忙 (Snack Busy) here. I used to see this brand more often back in my hometown and always thought it was a bit further from Shanghai. Turns out, one street, Wenhui Road, completely shattered that stereotype of mine.
My current assessment is quite clear: the fact that a store like 零食很忙 can open in Songjiang isn’t because Shanghai has suddenly “degraded” to a lower tier. Rather, it’s because Songjiang was never just the peripheral edge of Shanghai as many people imagine. If you treat this area as a suburb, it actually possesses sufficient foot traffic, a sufficiently young customer base, and enough dwell time; if you view it as merely a dormitory town, it is backed by the historical foundation of Songjiang Prefecture, the innovative resources of the university town, and its new positioning as the southwest gateway to Shanghai.