From scratch to Manhattan in two decades--is it possible?

[oishiibing70]

1991




2001





2011



Even as late as the early 90s, Pudong (one of the main financial zones of Shanghai as pictured above) was nothing but a swampland, with scattered small farms and most people who lived there were villagers. All of those skyscrapers you saw in the second photo rose up in less than a single decade. Personally, I think this is totally amazing. Well, it took more than half a century for New York to became what it is today now, and even Tokyo had the sacrafice of a whole generation to achieve its modern status. More amazingly, I just visited Shanghai this New Year, I saw constructions going on everywhere. Some localers have told me that if they were out of the city for more than three weeks, they would return and find several new skyscrapers which never existed before. From my experience, Shanghai, especially at night, is a wonderland--it is just like if you are inside a science fiction novel or movie--I can't simply put it into words. Shanghai is way bigger than New York (the Pudong area of Shanghai pictured above is only a very small fraction of the city; the rest of the city is also repleted with spectacular skyscrapers and expressways) and the density of both people and skyscrapers are also much higher.

However, I believe most Americans and other people in the world still perceive or imagine China as 40 or 50 years ago--during the Culture Revolution and poverty years, or better in the year 1989 when the Tiananmen incident took place.Today's China is hardly communistic at all, on the contrary, its capitalistic mentality is going as wild as one can possibly imagine; it's like an exciting rollercoaster ride--going from one extreme to another. While I was there, I found out that the average Chinese person knows much more about America than the other way around--most Americans are duped by their politicians (the so-called leaders of freedom and democracy) and are brainwashed by the mass media thinking that people from other places somehow have worse lives than they do; this is really a huge and shameful irony, since American politics likes to blame the Chinese "coummunists" of brainwashing their citizens and denying basic human rights--actually, I think most Chinese people in the large cities lead very prosperous and pleasant lives and hold much knowledge and respect for people outside their realm. It's understandable though, since the world has never seen and probably will never see such rapid developments in such short period of time again in all of human history. I'm not just talking about Shanghai; during my time there, I travelled to other cities, too. And bascially the same was going on everywhere in the country. Such drama is so dynamic and on-going--only seeing is believing.

[Yankee BOY]

Why would they want to build their skyline in 2 decades. They might have more skyscrapers but the skyline wont have much history to it.

[Vlad the Great]

Originally Posted by oishiibing70

Shanghai is way bigger than New York (the Pudong area of Shanghai pictured above is only a very small fraction of the city; the rest of the city is also repleted with spectacular skyscrapers and expressways) and the density of both people and skyscrapers are also much higher.

Way bigger?

The fuck you talking about.

Density of people?

Yorkville is the most dense place on earth.

Spectacular skyscrapers?

Individually sure, together they become a mess, the buildings all clash. It's like each building is trying to show off, but it all just looks so superficial.
Cities like NYC, Chi-town and HK have contrast and look much better...IMO of course.

[Vlad the Great]

BTW all you've done on this forum is say that Shanghai is better than NYC.

In an NYC forum.

What kind of response do you expect to get? Smiles and hugs?

[3tmk]

obviously Shanghai has done a lot, but IMO it still isn't as good as NYC. The only city beating NYC is HK, by skyline and individual buildings.
Anyway, wasn't Gaza the densest place in the world?

[New Jack City]

Shanghai has done some wonderful things despite the fact that I'm not a big fan of their towers, especially Jin Mao. However, it can't play with the big boys just yet.

3tmk, I still don't think HK beats NYC either. Sure they might have more towers but it isn't as architecturally distinguished as NYC and just take a look at it's massive residential lookalike projects, I'm really glad NYC has few of those.

[STR]

Shanghai didn't go from nothing to New York in 20 years.
Shanghai went from nothing to Las Vegas in 20 years.

[Gendo]

Originally Posted by oishiibing70

[SIZE=1]1991
Even as late as the early 90s, Pudong (one of the main financial zones of Shanghai as pictured above) was nothing but a swampland, with scattered small farms and most people who lived there were villagers. All of those skyscrapers you saw in the second photo rose up in less than a single decade. Personally, I think this is totally amazing. Well, it took more than half a century for New York to became what it is today now, and even Tokyo had the sacrafice of a whole generation to achieve its modern status. More amazingly, I just visited Shanghai this New Year, I saw constructions going on everywhere. Some localers have told me that if they were out of the city for more than three weeks, they would return and find several new skyscrapers which never existed before. From my experience, Shanghai, especially at night, is a wonderland--it is just like if you are inside a science fiction novel or movie--I can't simply put it into words. Shanghai is way bigger than New York (the Pudong area of Shanghai pictured above is only a very small fraction of the city; the rest of the city is also repleted with spectacular skyscrapers and expressways) and the density of both people and skyscrapers are also much higher.

However, I believe most Americans and other people in the world still perceive or imagine China as 40 or 50 years ago--during the Culture Revolution and poverty years, or better in the year 1989 when the Tiananmen incident took place. Today's China is hardly communistic at all, on the contrary, its capitalistic mentality is going as wild as one can possibly imagine; it's like an exciting rollercoaster ride--going from one extreme to another. It's understandable though, since the world has never seen and probably will never see such rapid developments again in all of human history. I'm not just talking about Shanghai; during my time there, I travelled to other cities, too. And bascially the same is going on everywhere in the country. Such drama is so dynamic and on-going--only seeing is believing.

That was the gist of my speech to other college students a few months ago.

Watch out, China's an up and coming superpower. I wonder when the Jetsons are going to move there. LOL

[Skyscrapercitizen]

Even if they have a similar skyline, and are bigger, the NYC is still better because of culture and differences in culture.

Useless thread btw....

[3tmk]

Originally Posted by STR

Shanghai didn't go from nothing to New York in 20 years.
Shanghai went from nothing to Las Vegas in 20 years.

yeah, actually that's better

[Ellatur]

arg... why do they want to beat NYC so much? just deal with your jealousy in some other way

[Third of a kind]

well of course shanghai is one crazy example of how china's economy is right now, but don't forget manhattan is the place that it is because it did not spring up in a decade....of course buildings add to the vernacular of our cities, but the speed in which they're put up or how many gazillion you have don't make up the city's altogether..


i've never been to shanghai or hong kong, but of course i've seen the pictures here on this site and other places..and I'd like to go one day

[sbarn]

Pudong:


Pudong is an overgrown office park... in no way does it match the general density of Central Shanghai or Manhattan.

Further, the skyline of Central Shanghai (although it is modern and has nice buildings) does not match the density of Manhattan's skyline.

Manhattan, NYC:

[New Jack City]

Originally Posted by Ellatur

arg... why do they want to beat NYC so much? just deal with your jealousy in some other way

I agree, what's with the obsession of wanting to be so much like NYC?

[cincobarrio]

"From scratch to Manhattan in two decades--is it possible?"

No...

[Ed007Toronto]

I'd like to know how many of those buildings in Shanghai are actually fully leased. Seems to me that there's been a significant amount of speculative building that could go poof just like that. Same thing that happened to New York after the crash of 1929. Other than a few projects like Rockefeller Center New York saw few projects until after World War Two. It took 20 years to eat up the oversupply that was created in the roaring 20's.

[STR]

Originally Posted by savethewtc

I agree, what's with the obsession of wanting to be so much like NYC?

I don't know. You'd think they'd want to imitate a much better city, like Chicago. :p

[hkskyline]

Actually, Shanghai's vacancy rate has normalized below 10%, which is on par with most other major international markets. The oversupply problem of the 1990s is now over.

[KOKOLOGIST]

No city will ever beat NYC.

Manhattan is like a perfectly aged bottle of wine......
Those towers in Pudong are for sure impressive but they will never have the effect that NYC towers have. ESB, Chrysler, American International, Woolworth those are buildings with history. They set the trend for the rest. Mahattan is an open air museum...and Shanghai looks like a hastily made bootleg......just like those fake rolexes in NYC's Chinatown....

Still, I got to give the Chinese credit for being so good at copying others.

[hkskyline]

Actually, Shanghai has a huge collection of Art Deco buildings right across the river from Pudong. In fact, the 'skyline' includes both sides - Puxi (west) and Pudong (east).