Beijing Suburbs. Photo by Manuel.A.69.
As China’s expanding cities inevitably swallow up surrounding countryside, the boundaries between urban, rural and suburban areas become progressively more blurred. What today might be farmland could tomorrow be the next central business district sprouting state-of-the-art skyscrapers. This fast-changing reality makes defining what constitutes urban vs suburban with developed-world standards insufficient. China needs its own definitions. Continue reading
A frequently revisited topic in discussions about China’s development is the widespread loss of historic structures and neighborhoods throughout the country’s fast-changing metropolises. From the Western historical preservation perspective, much of what has taken place over the course of China’s three-decade long modernization is nothing short of an epic tragedy. No other narrative exemplifies this lament more than the destruction of the hutong neighborhoods in central Beijing.
Last July, the New York Times ran a story about this very topic, aptly titled ‘Bulldozers Meet Historic Chinese Neighborhood’. The neighborhood in question is Gulou (meaning ‘drum tower’, which is the neighborhood’s landmark, along with the adjacent Zhonglou, or ‘bell tower’). Located in central Beijing, just north of the Forbidden City, Gulou is one of the last remaining areas comprising hutongs (narrow alleys) lined by the accompanying siheyuan (traditional courtyard homes). Continue reading
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
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
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