„Ah, the Bund.
I live in Shanghai. It’s certainly developing at a crazy fast rate. They are building stuff EVERYWHERE, and they don’t seem to care that much for keeping the old buildings.
In the apartment block in which I live in the Xuhui district (pretty central, in the French Concession area), there is block 2 to the west. Stupid block 2, think they are awesome but they’re not. Block 1 is where it’s at, everybody knows that. That’s why we’re block 1, and they’re just lame old block 2. But I digress.
Directly to the south of our blocks there is a massive building being built. Behind that, another massive apartment building being built. Across the road from that, another massive apartment building being built. Behind us to the north, there is… a massive apartment being built. To the east is a very recently built apartment block.
And we’re not even living in a particularly developing area of the city. But they’re building all of these huge buildings simultaneously.
It’s a pretty amazing place to live, and things move so fast around here. One of my favourite restaurants opened up a PuDong branch about 6 months ago. It closed a few weeks ago. I think I was one of the last people ever to eat there.
There are plenty of lower-lying places around – that was taken on XiZang Nan Lu, in Laoximen, a rapidly developing central area (I love that my camera can do panoramic photos!). But now it just makes me wonder how long before they’re replaced by skyscrapers. I visited here last year and so much changed between then and moving here. Places I remembered were gone, places that were barely construction sites suddenly had huge buildings sitting there.
The Bund is a pretty amazing sight, especially on a clear night when all the lights come on. Photos don’t really do it justice, to be honest. The Pearl Tower (the weird spiky building on the left side with the domes) is truly a sight to behold (it’s frigging massive), and wherever you are along the Bund you can see the Bottle Opener (the Shanghai World Financial Centre, the tallest building in Shanghai) looming over everything. The Jinmao Tower (just to the left of the Bottle Opener in that photo) was the highest building in Shanghai for only 8 years, until they finished the Bottle Opener in 2007. Amazingly, the Shanghai Tower, the building they’re planning to put next to the Bottle Opener and Jinmao, is going to be even taller. Like, significantly taller.
According to Wikipedia, the Jinmao Tower is 421m / 1,380ft tall. The Bottle Opener is 494.4m / 1,622ft tall.
The Shanghai Tower is going to be 632m / 2,073ft tall. That’s brown trousers height. I can’t even imagine there being something there that will dwarf the Bottle Opener, that thing is huge.
While the World Expo was going on, factories in Shanghai were partially shut down to decrease pollution levels (it seemed rather ironic that the whole ethos of the Expo was “Better City, Better Life”, encouraging less pollution and building cities with the future in mind, considering Shanghai is a massive explosion of industrial development). I didn’t really appreciate it until after the Expo finished and the smog came back (although it’s really not that bad most days). But some nights the view really is jawdropping, even more so when the sky was clear of smog.
Who knows how amazing it will be in another 10 years. I hope I’m here to see it, or at least in a position to visit.
I do like living here, a lot. It’s such a great time to be living in Shanghai.
In the meantime, if any redditors want to come visit, I’ll be happy to buy you a beer and show you around a little. I’d definitely recommend it.” – http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/f5plk/shanghai_1990_vs_2010/
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