now that i've finally beat the jet lag and had some time to reflect, i can say that
shanghai is a truly amazing city. the rate of
new building eclipses the rate of building in any american city by perhaps a ten-fold. new,
post-modern high rises are everywhere, as are uber-lux malls and office buildings.
of course, before the newest, cleanest, most hi-tech mall can be built, the older housing complexes must be
demolished. the architectural value of these complexes (c. 1920's-1930's), as well as the inconvenience to the inhabitants, seem less important to the government than Progress. luckily, many older structures have been left alone in midst of the demolition, construction, and towers, as in parts of the old city pictured above.
already boasting a population of over 16 million, shanghai is still absorbing masses of new residents coming from the countryside looking for work. and they may find work, perhaps as one of a crew of blue-jumpsuited street sweepers, who rise at dawn to keep the sidewalks spotless with old fiber brooms. or maybe as a constructon worker, toiling inside the netting and
bamboo scaffolding 65 stories above the people's square. the feeling in shanghai is like new york capitalism on steroids, with everybody feeling the excitement of new found opportunity coursing through the clogged streets.
of course, the air is filthy. one can't walk five blocks without feeling flecks in the eyes, mouth, and lungs. bikers wear surgical masks and visors, and tourists take cabs. the water is not drinkable, even for locals. but unlike new york in its industrial revolution, shanghai has the benefit of advanced pollution control technologies, and is making what seem like strides toward increasing fuel economy, generating energy from cleaner processes, and treating wastewater and
drinking water.
shanghai will host the
2010 world expo, for which even more massive building projects are planned, including the tallest tower in the world, a massive rail station, two new high-speed magnetic levitation trains (in addition to the current one running from the airport, the only one of its kind in the world), a stadium, and tons of housing.
it began to sink in on the cab ride home from the airport, looking at the manhattan skyline from the kosciuko bridge, that new york may be the biggest, most hectic city in the u.s., but it looks to me now like a quaint, 19th- or mid-20th century villiage, with a rotting subway and infrastructure, a glut of modernist high-rise boxes, a lazy over-unionized workforce, and a lengthy, acrimonious and complex building process that makes for distant hopes of the next new major public space. still, it was nice to breathe clean(er) air, drink clean(er) water, and walk the streets without the faintest feeling of being crowded.
