Yesterday, workers dug up bricks from the roads and removed quite a few of the metal barriers that separate pedestrian areas from roads — under police supervision — leaving large patches of compacted earth as walkways.
At first glance, a simple act to deprive protestors of projectiles and barricade materials for the National Day marches, but it's not hard to see the connection to Mao's Down to the Countryside Movement [en.wikipedia.org]:
As a result of what he perceived to be pro-bourgeois thinking prevalent during the Cultural Revolution, Chairman Mao Zedong declared certain privileged urban youth would be sent to mountainous areas or farming villages to learn from the workers and farmers there. In total, approximately 17 million youth were sent to rural areas as a result of the movement.
Only, instead of sending Hong Kong citizens to rural China, they decided to make Hong Kong look a little more rustic.