In the initial years after the founding of the People's Republic in 1949 new housing developments appeared in Madian. Due to its location accessible to other areas, Madian was selected as a place for the development of new housing. Apartments were built in the place of the slaughterhouse and sheep market after those facilities were demolished. Han people moved into the apartments, causing the percentage of Hui people to decrease. Weiping Wu and Piper Gaubatz, authors of "The Chinese City", wrote that the result was that "lost much of its Muslim character". The resident head stated that in the 1980s fewer than 30% of the people in Madian were Muslim. In 1996 Dru C. Gladney, author of "Muslim Chinese: Ethnic Nationalism in the People's Republic", wrote that "recent studies indicate that the community continues to maintain a strong solidarity."