* SHANGHAI * 上海

1721010 Views 5101 Replies 537 Participants Last post by Zaz965, 7 h ago

raymond_tung88

Discussion Starter · Sep 7, 2004

Shanghai Cityscape 上海都市风景

I just put in an order for a book called "Touring Shanghai". I saw it as an advertisement for the magazine "The Hong Kong China Tourism Press". Anyways, I was wondering if any of you guys have it and could tell me if its a good book, has a lot of modern pictures of Shanghai, etc.

Thanks.

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NCT

· #685 · Sep 1, 2009

I do believe that Shanghai has become too tall and too dense. A few tall buildings here ard there are good, but when you have them all over the place they do become a little overbearing. I don't disagree with the opinions that old houses are not nice to live in, but new developments should inherit some of the traditional styles, or at least be a bit more creative for goodness' sake. 'Housing shortages' has been bandited about as the reason for this ultra-high density (much denser than Tokyo incidentally) but I suspect an over-inflated housing market - there needs to be a much better managed social housing programme that discourages one household owning multiple properties (quite common in Shanghai I feel).

NCT

· #690 · Sep 2, 2009

Oh and also, too many Latin letters and foreign names - where's China's own stuff?

NCT

· #696 · Sep 5, 2009

zergcerebrates said:
Its called globalisation and open market. Different streets will have different stuff Nanjing road has all the Chinese stuff you can find.

Balance and integration still leave a lot to be desired IMO.

NCT

· #709 · Sep 7, 2009

Now that's what I call light pollution...

NCT

· #742 · Nov 22, 2009

Nice pics of Xujiahui.

I really hate pavements being used as parking spaces.

NCT

· #810 · Jan 5, 2010

The traditional 'centre' of Shanghai has always been and will continue being old Huangpu (Nanjing Road East and The Bund), and parts of old Nanshi (now merged with Huangpu), Jing'an (Nanjing Road West and Jing'an Temple) and Luwan (Huaihai Road). Xujiahui and Lujiazui are fairly recent extentions of the centre.

NCT

· #875 · Mar 7, 2010

Celebriton said:
^^It's not me who made those graph. And he made that size based on administrative area, I think. It's city vs city, not city vs whole metropolitan area. I already understand about that, that is why I wrote Shanghai is a municipality.

Administrative boundaries could mean nothing much more than street painting and rubbish collection in certain countries. What's more important is how areas interact with each other. In this sense Greater London, Ils de France and Greater Tokyo really aren't that different to Shanghai. Comparisons based purely on administrative boundaries are meaningless.

NCT

· #884 · Mar 16, 2010

Sorry Alec, but administrative boundaries tell you nothing, nothing at all. I'd wager those prefectures are more integrated with / dependent upon Tokyo than some of Shanghai's outer towns like Huinan, Qingpu or Jinshan. Kanagawa, Saitama and the like are part of one single continuous urban area, whereas the outer towns of Shanghai are physically completely separate from the urban core, and will remain so for the next 30-odd years. Only a few decades ago the now outer boroughs of Shanghai were part of Jiangsu province.

NCT

· #889 · Mar 17, 2010

Sounds about right. The north-south elevated road came soon afterwards (which is what's shown in the picture I think), to be succeeded by the Yan'an elevated road.

NCT

· #913 · Mar 28, 2010

Zhaojiabang Road, near Wanping Road?

NCT

· #933 · Apr 2, 2010

oliver999 said:

Wow I quite like this picture actually. It's taken near Jing'an Temple looking towards People's Square unless I'm very much mistaken?

NCT

· #956 · May 6, 2010

Herzarsen said:
4) Is incorrect, since most vehicles in China are new and so their over all emission average is by far better then those of the US and so I would think also Japan. Plus chinese government is following (with few year delay) the European emission standard which is I would think is the most stringent.

Chinese emission standards lag that of the west considerably. Euro 4 has only just been rolled out on Shanghai's buses.

NCT

· #958 · May 6, 2010

alec74 said:
^^^^^^^^

The secret word here is in effect "with a few years delay"...EU adopted euro 5 effectively at the end of 2009, and will adopt euro 6 in 2014 (more probably in 2015)...So "considerably lagging behind" could a little to much..considering that shanghai implemented euro 4 this year, and that Beijing implemented it on january 2008

EU went Euro 4 in 2006/07, which is 3 years ahead of Shanghai. Given that the next level is half of the emission of the current one, and factoring in vehicle growth, 3 years makes a huge difference.

NCT

· #962 · May 10, 2010

jacks said:
On the topic of pollution, Shanghai has far fewer cars per head than any western city. I went back last year and there were far more cars than five years ago when I lived there, but even so, these are all new cars so even if standards are lower I suspect that pollution per car is still not bad.
The big polluter a few years back was the open coal dumps by the river, even right in the middle of Lujiazui. The barges would bring coal in and it would get dumped on a pile. As a result the whole place used to be covered in coal dust, and this was before any of the coal even got burned. Most of this seemed to be gone last year though I've no doubt a huge amount of coal is still used.
The worst thing from a visibility (and so photo) point of view was and still is the humidity. Slap a polarising filter on your camera in Shanghai and you'll be amazed at the difference, even when it seems like a clear day.

True enough, but at the end of the day what the people care about is the amount of pollution per unit volume of air, because this is what you breath. There's nothing one can do about population density, so Shanghai has to settle for a substantially lower percentage of car ownership and use than Western cities with the lower densities.

NCT

· #966 · May 11, 2010

alec74 said:
"with a few years delay"...that's what was written, and that's what it is (u also confirmed that in ur post)...the rest is ur usual "climbing on the mirrors" thing.
Percentages of emissions cut and anything else (though important on the whole) has nothing to with that simple and true statement u previously denied, and now directly confirmed (as it is simply true), but try nevertheless to indirectly deny...

I was just pointing out the significance of the 'with a few year's delay', which I believe makes a rather big difference. Each emission standard allows about half as much pollutants as the previous one, and vehicle numbers have grown exponentially - do the maths. It means total annual emmisions have still been steadily increasing, and the more the delay in adopting new standards the faster the increase.

Also there's the unfortunte fact that quality of fuel in China is pretty low - which means the same engine will pollute more in China than countries with fuels of higher quality. Coupled with dubious maintenance of fleets you frequently see huge black clouds coming out of a vehicle that's actually on EU2 standards.

There's no denying that more stringent emission standards are being adopted, but that doesn't automatically translate to reduced total emissions. In fact all the other related factors suggest otherwise. That's not just my own 'axe-to-grind' opinion - it's widely acknowledged among transport and environmental experts.

maldini said:
Many of these so-called western cities have way too many vehicles and pollution, and therefore they waste too much energy. These western cities should learn from Shanghai instead. Lower percentage of car ownership is actually a good thing.
Therefore, your concept of "has to settle for a substantially lower percentage of car ownership" is stupid.

Look, the current discussion is about total emission, not so much personal emission. Vehicle use and emission per person is undeniably lower in Shanghai than in Western cities, but total vehicle use and emission per square metre of land is a totally different kettle of fish. Unfortunately the amount of air doesn't increase as population density increases, so the notion of total emission is actually more relevant. So if we are to enjoy good air quality simply 'lower car ownership' won't do - it has to be a much, much, much lower percentage. Judging by the shear number of my extended family members and friends in China have cars and once they do they forget everything public transport, and this is reflected in the wider society, I'm not sure Shanghai is going down the right path.

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NCT

· #991 · May 19, 2010

I must say the new pedestrian overpass at Lujiazui looks pretty well designed - the paving material and ornamentation are streets ahead of any over- or underpasses in British cities. Do I see a wheelchair accessible lift in the top photo? And is there one on every corner?

Shanghai's central commercial parts, the main places of convergence, are very nice, modern and clean. There are still some inner pockets that look a bit rundown but they are getting redeveloped with new buildings or regenerated with new uses (新天地 and 田子坊 for example). In the outer areas, new (sub-)urban developments are 'nice', old rural villages less so.

On the subjective topic or Shanghai vs Tokyo - on a purely urban form level, personally I prefer Shanghai for the better variety of architectural styles and better spacing between residential buildings.

NCT

· #1,031 · Jun 11, 2010

Ah yes, you can just make out the islands of Changxing and Hengsha, which means it is indeed the Yangzte estury that one can see, although one could say there's a bit of the East Sea visible.

NCT

· #1,063 · Jul 21, 2010

uwhuskies said:
A follow-up question: What type of Driver Education or Training is required to obtain a Drivers' License in China, AND how rigorous is the testing required to obtain a drivers' license?

Maybe the fines including revoking licenses would help remind people that driving is not a right but a privilege.

BTW, that person who was driving in that Youtube clip is an unsafe driver. In my hometown, they would get ticketed for unsafe driving if the police had seen them drive that way. The LEFT lane is reserved for passing vehicles only unless it has special designation for HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle travel) then the next left most lane is for passing.

The wrong type of training full stop. All the attention is focused on raw techniques like driving through 2 lines of cones at speed, and there's almost nothing on consideration for other road users (which is the main focus for the UK driving test).

NCT

· #1,081 · Aug 3, 2010

Looks like it.

Squirtle Squad lol Shanghai's traffic definitely takes some getting used to - there certainly are quite a few hair-splitting moments. The hardest thing for me is that people don't slow down and come straight at you. When they go past you (scooters especially) they just don't leave enough space and go at a high speed. You just have to be thick-skinned I guess. But yes, it's definitely dangerous.

NCT

· #1,083 · Aug 3, 2010

That's not good driving skills that's reckless driving, nothing to be proud of.

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