Author Archives: Adam Mayer

Too Good To Be True: Architecture Scams in China

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Architecture professionals across the world are entranced by the building boom taking place in China. The urbanization of China’s cities has been a lucrative opportunity for several foreign firms. With the global economic recession freezing construction activity in most Western countries, more architects are looking to China as a panacea for the lack of new work.

Being an American architecture design professional working in China, I get asked often about opportunities for foreign architects eager to break into the local market. My advice always starts by suggesting  to leave preconceived notions about doing business in China behind and approach opportunities with a very open mind. Furthermore, despite the perception that China’s building boom is a free-for-all, the reality is that penetrating the market and getting commissions is not as easy as it seems. Continue reading →

Post G-20 Hangover: Trade Wars, Currency Manipulation & More

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Downtown Seoul

The G-20 meeting in Seoul earlier this month left in its wake a trail of uncertainty regarding the state of the global economic system. The U.S. received its fair share of criticism over its ‘QE2’ quantitative easing measure. ‘Quantitative easing’ is  essentially akin to the Federal Reserve Bank printing more money. The goal here is to help stimulate job growth in the U.S. by weakening the dollar. Forbes columnist Shaun Rein explains why quantitative easing might actually be  a terrible mistake.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner denies the U.S. is manipulating its currency while continually berating China over the low valuation of its RMB. With QE2, the United States can no longer taker the moral high-ground because it has now entered the currency devaluation game. The intent of QE2 is to try to direct investment and job growth back to the U.S. but it will probably have the opposite effect: lowering the standard of living of American by causing inflation. Continue reading →

China Leaping Ahead With High-Speed Rail

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Fast Train from Chengdu to Chongqing

Via Infrastructruist:

As America continues its game of high-speed rail hot potato, China has quietly finished laying the tracks for the longest bullet line in the world. Spanning more than 800 miles, the line will link the Chinese capital of Beijing with Shanghai, an economic hub on the east. Travel between the two cities will drop to four hours—down from 10—when train service begins in 2012.

Infrastructurist: China Completes World’s Longest Bullet Line

Well there you have it folks. China is pulling far ahead in transportation development with its comprehensive high-speed passenger rail system. Meanwhile, Megan McArdle at the Atlantic writes about why the U.S. will not get China’s high-speed rail. She makes some very good points, including the fact that China has a higher concentration of densely populated metropolises close to one another than in the U.S.- creating a demand for high-speed rail.

McArdle might be onto something here, as opponents of high-speed passenger rail in the U.S. worry about low ridership levels due to the sprawling, low-density nature of the country and its cities- which are, as the argument goes, better served by the private automobile.

Low ridership is definitely not a problem in China, where it is advisable to book tickets for high-speed rail routes at least 5 days in advance due to a huge demand. Whether this would be the case in the U.S. or not would be difficult to predict. For China, a comprehensive high-speed rail system is perhaps the crowning accomplishment on its path to economic and urban dominance.

Tragedy in Shanghai

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I’m an unabashed fan of tall buildings, high-rises, skyscrapers- whatever you want to call them. Not only do they lend cities a sense of identity by the way a collection of tall buildings can uniquely define a skyline, they also offer occupants a chance to experience urban environments in the elusive z-axis. Residential towers offer the potential to transform neighborhoods into bustling high-density zones of activity. There is arguably no other type of building that defines the current modern era of world architecture better than the skyscraper.

The high-rise building type is not without its calculated risk though, especially when it comes to the issue of safe occupant egress in case of emergency. When tall buildings do fail (a very rare occurrence), the results are sometimes disastrous. One only needs to remember the image of the collapsing World Trade Center Towers in Manhattan to get a grim reminder of the great risk and loss of life skyscrapers can pose. Continue reading →

China, Japan, America

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Japanese Retail Chain Uniqlo at Chengdu’s Chunxi Lu Shopping Street

After spending the previous two weeks in the U.S. visiting friends and relatives, I returned to chaos in Chengdu last week. Just a few blocks from my apartment, protests were being held at the city’s main shopping street, Chunxi Lu, against Japanese-owned businesses. I had no idea this was going on until I was alerted by my friends over at Chengdu Living who were there documenting the scene with photos and video.

This anti-Japanese demonstration came about due to a recent dispute about the ownership of the Diaoyu Islands in the Pacific. The cultural rift between the two countries goes deeper than that though, with bitter feelings about Japan’s invasion of China during World War II still prevalent among those living in mainland China. Continue reading →