Shanghai

The city planning portion of the trip has officially resumed.

We assembled in the lobby of our hotel in Yangshuo at 6:30 AM, had breakfast and boarded our shuttle bus a little after 7:00. The flight from Guilin Airport wasn’t until 11:20, which gave us time to go on a driving tour of Guilin. Our itinerary promised us we would see “new urbanist” projects, but in fact, all we really did was drive around the city, drawing our own observations. One of the young girls from our hotel came along on the bus to narrate, but she had stage fright and could not speak. The bus driver gave it a shot, informing us that Guilin had one major street that ran through it. Coming from an intercity tour bus driver, that was kind of funny.

Maybe you had to be there.

Dragon then narrated, telling us that Guilin was a “tiny city” of one million people. It was clearly prosperous and had a very nice feel to it. Beautiful tree-lined boulevards, pagodas, lakes, mid-rise buildings that were very nice in scale and proportion, and pleasant riverfront promenades. The best part was driving along the river at 9:30 in the morning and seeing hundreds of people taking part in dancing classes/ exercises. There were fan dancers, ballroom dancers, and even line dancers strutting their stuff along the main promenade; everyone looked very fit and happy. As we approached the airport, we passed some interesting looking subdivisions with three-story townhouses and California-style single family homes. A sign of things to come?

We did the usual airport check-in routine, boarded our plane, and left for Shanghai. Interestingly, about two-thirds of the passengers on the plane were Americans or Europeans.

We landed in Shanghai at 1:30, collected our luggage, and then searched for our shuttle bus into town. Finally found it, and made our way into the City center. It was maybe 15 miles, but took almost 90 minutes, as traffic was bumper to bumper the whole way. First impressions of Shanghai were not particularly positive, though pretty much what I was expecting. The City goes on and on and on, is very dense, and is full of really garish brassy buildings with spaceship-like rooftops. The air is brownish gray, the traffic is terrible, and everything is under construction. The city is greener than I expected, though, and in some ways is maybe more prosperous. Driving in from the airport, there was no evidence of any poverty or “slums” and everything is pretty well kept and maintained. Just big.

After some frustrating gridlock on local streets, we arrived at our hotel at 3:30. We were a little nervous at first, because the place looks a bit ratty on the outside. It’s actually okay but it’s in serious need of a facelift.

At 4 PM, we convened in a meeting room and were greeted by two planning consultants (Ann and Tim) from the local office of AJ+C, a planning firm based in Sydney. They did a wonderful 90 minute powerpoint presentation on planning in Shanghai, and fielded a lot of questions from our group. I really think we were starved for the kind of information they presented, including data and “basics” about how city planning is done here. It helped that they were westerners, so there were no translation issues. They were also very engaging, and their presentation was well structured. They were able to put Shanghai’s spectacular growth in perspective, and explain what it meant to be a planner in a city that will add four million people in the next 8 years. So many superlatives---tallest building, largest port, nine new towns of 300,000 people each, 17 new subway lines in 3 years, biggest construction project in the world, etc—it is pretty overwhelming.

Ann and Tim then took us on a walking tour of Central Shanghai, highlighting the Nanjing Road shopping district, and the waterfront promenade known as The Bund. Many of the buildings date from the 1920s and 30s and were designed by American architects. There was a similar ambiance to Hong Kong, but it felt a bit more out of control, more hawkers, more crazy drivers, and generally a higher level of chaos. The best part of The Bund was looking east to PuDong, the new quarter of the City that was rice paddies just 20 years ago. It’s now a gigantic city filled with iconic buildings straight out of The Jetsons.

We went up to the roof deck of a classic old Bund building recently re-designed by Michael Graves. There, we had glasses of wine, watched the traffic crawl by on the Bund and the river, and continued talking about planning in Shanghai with our hosts. As it got dark, the neon lights of PuDong came on, making for a great backdrop to a discussion about the future of world cities.

At around 8:00, we bade farewell to our hosts and walked to a nearby restaurant called Uncle Albert’s. It was a big fancy looking place in the basement of a high-rise office building. We had a pretty good meal and retired to the hotel. Not sure how others feel, but I am exhausted.

More lectures and walking tours tomorrow. It's a shame we dont have more time in Shanghai. From a planning perspective it is probably the most interesting place in the world at this point in history, and I think we'd need at least three days here to appreciate all that's going on. Reason to come back, I guess!