Booming Shanghai Struggles To Create Livability

"A graceful melding of old and new fits Shanghai's ambitions as it steams toward its third decade of hypergrowth. Like Renaissance Florence, London in the 1800s, or New York early in the 20th century, Shanghai aims to muscle its way into a top spot in the global economic order -- a role it played back in the 1920s. Today, Shanghai is the mainland's most populous city, with 18 million residents. It's home to the Asia headquarters of more than 150 global corporations, including General Motors, IBM, and Alcatel-Lucent. And multinationals are boosting their commitment. GM today employs some 1,800 white-collar workers in the city, 60% more than in 2004, while Citibank now has 2,000 employees there, up from 80 in 1999. 'Shanghai has very visible ambitions to be a major financial center in the region and perhaps beyond,' says Richard Stanley, CEO of Citigroup China."

"In neighborhood after neighborhood, though, eight-lane expressways and steel-and-glass behemoths crowd out gracious townhouses and tenements dating to the early 20th century. The city has doubled its housing stock over the past two decades, but most of those new homes are in soulless skyscrapers. And many of Pudong's towers stand alongside the 100-yard-wide Century Avenue, a thoroughfare that's nearly impossible to cross and lacks so much as a kiosk selling newspapers, let alone a sidewalk café. The district represents 'a failure to create a livable urban environment,' says Tom Doctoroff, the chief executive for Greater China at ad agency JWT Co."