Following the research into viewing globalizing cities in the capitalist world economy, which in other words were reading into how cities were transformed mainly due to influence of the western social and economy, it raises questions into my head of how many cities, even with similar general characteristic, such as diversified language, rapid growth of population, industrialization etc, all grown into such unique forms of cities of its own. And in the modern age, it also seems that each of the globalized cities, particularly in East Asia/ South East Asia, are not replaceable by any other neighboring cities. So aside from Manila, capital city of the Philippines, which my group looked into during our weekly presentation, I would also like to take a closer look into Shanghai, a municipality in China, but also one of the leading cities in Asia. Shanghai was mentioned in Smith and Timberlake’s article (2002), with remarks of it already being a significant seaport and leader center under the influence of Britain as well, and also was labeled to be a potential challenger of Hong Kong as the leading city for international trade, commerce and investment. Fastforwarding to two decades later, such an estimation was certainly accurate. Shanghai has developed into its own form of globalized city. Viewing Shanghai as a case study, I would like to understand the unique kinds of contemporary urbanization and phenomenon which we mentioned in Dick and RImmer’s paper (1998). I would like to gain a brief knowledge on what sort of urban planning had significant impact towards the city’s urban reformation, the advantages, and also current issues which the city is facing in modern times.
The two articles have helped raise the critical issues of what kind of politics in the past decade have acted as a major force for Shanghai to become the globalized way it is right now, and also how these politics were able to lead to the unique contemporary urbanization of Shanghai. Unlike some other cities, Shanghai had a rather early colonized historic timeline, the Communists party was able to seize power since the 1950s, and that was also the first phase of Chinese urban planning, it aimed towards urban modernization- which was closely following steps of the Western Chicago school model. This is actually reminiscent of the convergence period of South-east Asia cities mentioned in Dick and Rimmer’s (1998) article. Yet different from other cities, was China’s Cultural Revolution, the urban planning that originally closely followed steps of the West, the maximization of industrial production and new projects were put to an absurd stop by Mao Zedong between 1966 and 1976 (Douay, 2008). Ever since then, China was closed into traditional Chinese urban planning, completely opposite to the modernized urbanization or any capitalist world economy trend. Reading into the urban development of Shanghai after the intervention of Maoism, it seems that certain challenges to the western model were reduced during the period of time which Shanghai retreated back towards a more Chinese traditional approach. For example, Western governments are largely facing challenges related to regulating land use, yet these were put into planning from 1979 in China as special economic zones were being planned, and eventually, Shanghai became one as well. Hence, although the Chinese traditional urban planning came into play for a few decades, it was able to provide a strong foundation for Shanghai to remain as a very compatible city for the modernized globalization decades later.
Shanghai seems like a very well rounded developed globalized city especially when viewing its urban planning in the past 2 decades, with major global events being held, world class architectures, the city is not just simply a foster of global economic activities. Inevitably, Shanghai experienced another phase of rapid urban growth when urban expansion hit the outskirts of the city. Viewing the urban sprawls, it was an outcome of both the market forces and government actions(Tian et al, 2017). Shanghai was used as a case study for measuring exactly how urban sprawl occurred, the patterns, and also what it signified in terms of urbanization. Viewing the larger picture, Shanghai succeeds as an urbanized city, yet the urban sprawls highlight the faults in the role of planning of local governments (Tian et al, 2017 ). Based on research, the urban sprawl data indicated how local urban planning was not sufficient in balancing the infrastructure and rapid growth of Shanghai. Although Shanghai is ranked as a leading global urbanized city, it is still needing to head towards a more sustainable urban planning approach.
Through the study of Shanghai as a case study, it allowed me to understand how urban planning does not only make a noticeable impact towards a city, an area, or a region during the immediate years. Especially in the case of Shanghai, in the past century, Shanghai has gone through at least two different major urban planning approaches- the Western Chicago school, and the traditional Chinese planning, then in the past decade it became a heavy mixture of both. However, for the current urbanization of the city, it is evident of how urban formation were rooted from various periods of the respective urban planning. It is actually quite amazing to see how a city can be pre equipped with certain qualities in order to maintain a leading role in a global setting. It would be even better to see if a city can actually live up to the global growth expectation while fostering sustainable growth with even better urban planning.
Reference
Douay, N. (2008) “Shanghai: Urban Planning Styles in Evolution.” China Perspectives. 2008/4. Pp.
16-25. ISSN: 2070-3449.
Dick, H. W., Rimmer, P. J. (1998). “Beyond the Third World City: The New Urban Geography of
Southeast Asia,” Urban Studies, 35, 12, 1998: 2303-2321.
Smith, D., Timberlake, M. (2002), “’Global Cities’ and ‘Globalization’ in East Asia: Empirical Realities
and Conceptual Questions,” UC Irvine CSD Working Papers.
https://escholarship.org/content/qt94q9j49b/qt94q9j49b.pdf
Tian, L., et al. (2017). Measuring urban sprawl and exploring the role planning plays: A Shanghai case
study. Land Use Policy 67 (2017), 426-435.
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