Monthly Archives: January 2011

Mega-City Semantics in the Pearl River Delta

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Dongguan Housing. Photo by livinginchina4now.

Several people have called my attention to a recent article from The Telegraph about China ‘creating the largest mega-city in the world with 42 million people‘. The title of the piece is a bit misleading as the government is not planning a new city per se, but rather combining a group of nearby cities into one huge ‘mega-city’. The targeted group of cities make up the Pearl River Delta region in China’s southern Guangdong Province.

Home to China’s famous first tier cities Guangzhou and Shenzhen, the Pearl River Delta is already one of the most populated places on earth. It is the manufacturing powerhouse of the country, thanks in large part to it being the first economically liberalized region after Reform and Opening Up. As a result of this, the Pearl River Delta has absorbed ambitious migrants from all over China for  the better part of three decades. Continue reading →

Kashgar: New SEZ in Xinjiang

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Photo courtesy of Nicolas Marino

One rising city to be on the look out for in the next decade of China development is little-known Kashgar in the country’s western Xinjiang Autonomous Region. At just under a half a million people, Kashgar (in Chinese known as ‘ka shi’) sits at the far western part of China near the borders of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan, making it a strategic gateway to Central Asia.

As a matter of fact, Kashgar has more in common culturally with its post-Soviet neighbors to the west than is does with what is historically thought of as China. Once an important outpost on the Northern Silk Road, today the city is dominated by the Uyghurs, a Muslim ethnic minority of Turkic origin.

This might not be the case for much longer. Continue reading →

China a Boon for American Architects

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The China World Trade Center in Beijing, Designed by American Architects Skidmore, Owings & Merrill

The New York Times finally caught up to what savvy architecture firms in the U.S. have known for at least the past decade: there is a lot of work to be had in China.

Now it seems that smaller firms are getting in on the action as well, and that in many cases Chinese clients are turning out to be  more adventurous in accepting new design ideas: Continue reading →

Beijing Roads Headed Toward Maximum Capacity

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2,000 New Cars Hit Beijing Streets Everyday

As the government and cultural center of the country, Beijing is a worthy capital of a rising China. The city’s infectious aspirations have led it to become a prime destination for ambitious Chinese from all parts of the country (and foreigners from all parts of the world). Unfortunately, this has not been without consequences to the city’s transportation network.

The massive growth of Beijing has put undue strain on the city’s roads. And though there has been a proliferation of new roads built in and around the city, the construction has not kept pace with the amount of new car owners. Continue reading →

China High-Speed Rail Tracks In Trouble?

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Photo by Matthew Felix Sun

The South China Morning Post has a worrying article about rail track construction quality for China’s new high-speed train network. The piece posits that the fast pace at which the system is being built means that quality is being sacrificed. Here is a reproduction of the article below: Continue reading →