URBLOG

Nowheresville, China. pop.5m.

Welcome to China's backwater - population five million

Hefei is nowheresville. Even in China, lots of people have never heard of it. China has witnessed such rapid growth in the last decade that even the cities you've never heard of are twice the size of Paris.

"As with so many Chinese cities, half of Hefei is a building site. So the drive from the airport will take you through rubble-strewn streets that, in the rains of last month, lay half submerged by great puddles of oily, brown water. [...]To say Hefei is nondescript is unfair not just its residents but to a hundred similar cities across China. "

 

First city of the future

The Observer special features on Beijing

'I am Chinese but my life is westernised in a city in which history survives in isolated fragments, sporadic pieces of tradition ruptured by modernity. We want to preserve our traditions and promote our value systems but we don't know what either of them is. After 30 years of this explosion of power, there are no rules, no plan for this city. We are crossing the river by feeling the stones beneath our feet.'

 

 

Beijing has rebuilt itself faster than any city on earth, turning from a warren of alleys into a capital fit for a superpower. No wonder the world's top architects - from Foster to Koolhaas - have flocked to make their mark on it.  Deyan Sudjic:

"Very few architects say in public that they will not build in Beijing. The only notable dissident is Daniel Libeskind of Ground Zero fame, who has questioned the seemliness of building for an authoritarian and undemocratic regime, under which construction workers endure the most primitive of conditions, with minimal safety provisions and poor wages."

WEBSITE LAUNCHED TO CONNECT SHACK/SLUM DWELLERS

Shack/ Slum Dwellers International have just launched their new website www.sdinet.org

Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI) is an international network of federations of the urban poor who share ideas and experiences, and support one another in gaining access to adequate land, infrastructure and housing. 

Shenzhen

Naomi Klein on growth and surveillance in a chinese city from Rolling Stone

Thirty years ago, the city of Shenzhen didn't exist. Back in those days, it was a string of small fishing villages and collectively run rice paddies, a place of rutted dirt roads and traditional temples.

Today, Shenzhen is a city of 12.4 million people, and there is a good chance that at least half of everything you own was made here: iPods, laptops, sneakers, flatscreen TVs, cellphones, jeans, maybe your desk chair, possibly your car and almost certainly your printer. Hundreds of luxury condominiums tower over the city; many are more than 40 stories high, topped with three-story penthouses.

...as China prepares to showcase its economic advances during the upcoming Olympics in Beijing, Shenzhen is once again serving as a laboratory, a testing ground for the next phase of this vast social experiment. Over the past two years, some 200,000 surveillance cameras have been installed throughout the city.

Pitfalls in paradise

Why Palm Jumeirah is struggling to live up to the hype.

Low-paid workers and villa gripes cast a cloud over 'eighth wonder of the world' in Dubai.

" ...this is no picture-book desert island. Its size is the most arresting characteristic for newcomers. An eight-lane motorway is at the Palm's trunk, and each frond is a mile long. Meanwhile, there is yet more expansion, with 40 hotels being built on the breakwater. [...] A nagging guilt for some is the quality of life of the migrant construction workers who built all this. Most are from India and Bangladesh and they travel in bus convoys from labour camps in the desert each morning. "

What's it like to live or work in a Le Corbusier building?

The pearl of the Punjab

Chandigarh, built on the baking plains of northern India, is one of Le Corbusier's greatest achievements. But does the city deserve World Heritage status?‘Le Corbusier designed Chandigarh for people: there are cycle tracks for the poor and playgrounds for the children. The architecture is really neat and clean, with green space and buildings in balance. People from outside do not think it is India.'   

Sayonara, salaryman

From The Economist print edition

Once the cornerstone of the economy, the paternalistic relationship between Japan's companies and their salaried employees is crumbling.

Delhi cleans up for Commonwealth games

Randeep Ramesh in The Guardian
Businesses, farmers and drivers in India enraged by plans for 'world-class' city by 2010 .

".....the games are just under three years away, India's capital is being reshaped as the city prepares for the biggest sporting event in its history. The Delhi government has begun putting up posters saying the capital will be transformed into a "world-class city" by the 2010 deadline....campaigners say that the rush to modernise is bringing "unsuitable" development to many parts of the capital. "

Global port cities under threat

Guardian Unlimited Photo essay

New research aims to pinpoint which cities are most reliant on adequate flood defences, and investigates how climate change is likely to impact each port city’s exposure to coastal flooding by the 2070s, taking into account socio-economic factors such as population growth and urbanisation.

Cycling in Cyber City

India's techies take to cycling

Bicycles may be the most popular two-wheeler on India's roads, but the millions who use them to commute and to transport goods and family in India's towns and villages certainly don't wear white helmets, fluorescent jackets or biking gloves.

See also 'Cycling to work, to save Earth'