Shanghai the Gargantuan

Shanghai is a perpetual construction zone. It is variously described as gargantuan, callous, bloated, indeed "capitalism on steroids." In 1901 an american travel writer described it as an apocalypse of "squalor, dilapidation, depravity and stench". It lost 12,000 buildings to the wreckers ball soon after. The current makeover is only one of a succession. The per capita income is five times the national average. Is the current Shanghai an emblem of urban living at its most sterile and inhuman? The Chinese have an elasticity of mind which allows them to see its grandiose landscape where private and intimate give way to something where nonetheless beauty and self esteem emerge. Western cities may be church hushed in comparison but are they too headed in the same direction? The cityscape of the future may come to resemble that of Ridley Scott's L.A. in Bladerunner or William Gibson's Tokyo in Neuromancer. A dystopia of disorder and environmental breakdown where neon signs flicker and smoke rises from the grates.
Source: Charles Foran, A Resonant Boom, The Walrus, November 2006.