Shanghai 1990 vs 2010

kinggimped · 1 year

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.

Edit: Just in case anybody else was interested since this comment seems to have sparked some questions, I did an AMA on moving to/living in Shanghai a few months ago.

riyadc · 1 year

Wow 1990? I thought the first pic was in the 1930s or something.

ImHereToReddit · 1 year

Can you spot the 6 differences?

Robotman1974 · 1 year

The coolest part is the "I ♥ Stephen Hawking" sign on that one building.

McDreads · 1 year

If I went into a coma and awoke 20 years later so see all that, I would literally shit my pants

frostickle · 1 year

This is deceptive, because it is really a photo of Pudong not all of Shanghai. Shanghai traditionally referred to the city on the West Bank of the Huangpu River (pictured here).

Development of Pudong as Shanghai's new financial district only started in 1990, before then it was basically farmland.

tl;dr If the 1990 photo was taken from the other side of the river, facing West, you'd see plenty of big buildings.

ChrisBostero · 1 year

I love that building on the right that looks like the worlds biggest bottle opener...... Or maybe I'm just a raging alcoholic

Mikey129 · 1 year

Meanwhile in New York City, The World Trade Center is still not complete.

BennyHarassi · 1 year

Obligatory Dubai 1990 vs 2003..

marcee · 1 year

If you are interested on more information and pictures of the evolution of Shanghai (or that part of Shanghai, anyway), go here: http://www.bricoleurbanism.org/whimsicality/past-and-future-on-shanghais-famous-bund/

And when you see OP's picture, remember that whole area with the skyscrapers were just marshes at the beginning of the 20th Century...

ubergeek404 · 1 year

They lost a park and gained a skyline. Unlike Dubai which lost a desert and got a lot of empty buildings, so they just increased the empty space.

NahanniWild · 1 year

why does the 1990 picture look like it was taken in the 60's?

symptomless · 1 year

The top image looks not unlike parts of Central London today; e.g. the view from above Westminster.

He11razor · 1 year

I bet their Chinatown is bigger than NYCs

dotJiggle · 1 year

Whoa..2010 is significantly darker.

[deleted] · 1 year

A trip in Shanghai while sitting behind your computer.

heuheuheuheuh · 1 year

Is it just me or is it a shame they got rid of that nice little clock tower? Also while this looks impressive at first it's kind of sad that the blue skies and greenery are gone. I'm aware that it's night time but I imagine there's a nice veil of smog during the day.

socks · 1 year

Amazing! I had friends from Shaghai in my dorm, in the US, in 1990 who would call home by ringing a phone booth on the street, whereupon someone standing next to it would answer and then have to yell up to the apartment his parents lived in, telling them to get their butts downstairs to answer the phone. My Beijing friends looked down on them. So much has changed.

Paratath · 1 year

Golden Age + Ruthless approach to land aquisition + Little value for human life = Boom time for red China

beesonthedees · 1 year

How do you say "This used to be all orange groves" in Mandarin?

stacycreeves · 1 year

I visited Shanghai in 2006 for a college trip, and it was really an eye opening experience. I'm already pretty Anti-Chinese-government, so I was predisposed to thinking they're all crazy for putting up with it (not that they have a choice, really), but pretty much everything I saw confirmed it.

What those photos don't show is that in 1980, Shanghai was almost entirely rice paddies and farmland. The city itself was a fraction of what you see. Most of what you see in the second photo above was there in 2000. The growth from 1990-2000 was explosive. They have a model with their Master Plan for Shanghai, and it's something like five times the size of NYC. They still have a long way to go, but at the rate they're building, it may be a reality before we know it.

The scariest part about Shanghai are the slums. They are literally right there in the middle of the city. Imagine walking through Manhattan and seeing what looks like a warzone with crumbling buildings, people going to the bathroom on the streets, getting their water from a leaking pipe, and 8-10 people sharing a one room apartment, sometimes an open air apartment that is missing a wall or a window on one side. What happens is that the Chinese government evicts people from their home with little to no compensation, and these people have nowhere to go, so they just wander around and live in whatever hole they can find until the government decides to build a skyscraper on top of their slum, and then they keep moving. They aren't dangerous like slums in American cities, but they are heartbreaking, especially considering that the thing that ruined most of those people was the government.

A few crazy facts:

-Average salary in Shanghai is around $225 USD a month, $2700 a year, with white color workers at Fortune 500 corporations like HP and Microsoft pulling in around $5k a year. Top, c-level executives make $300k a year. Note that Americans or other foreigners who are brought in are paid in their homeland dollars, with salaries that would be competitive back home. Basically, foreigners can live like kings in Shanghai, if they were brought over by their home-country companies. However if you just move to Shanghai and try to find a job, expect a massive pay cut.

-The cost of a small, cheap car (think a base Kia) is around $12-15k USD. The cost of a license plate is ~$5,000 USD and can only be won in a lottery/auction system. Essentially, cars are only realistic for the well-to-do.

-Apartments can be rented anywhere from $50-600 USD per month, with the typical rent around $150-200. However, if you want to purchase a home such as a condo, you're looking at an average of $750-900 PER SQUARE METER, with the average house at around 100 square meters. This is cheap (80k or so) compared to the US, but remember that the average income for a white collar worker is 5k per year. To give you an idea of the cost of living difference, US citizens generally buy a home 1-2x their income, Chinese citizens will buy a home 15x their income.

-Cost of fast food is around $2-3 USD for a meal. Restaurants average $5-6 USD. The best, fanciest average $10-15 USD. Our guide told us that it's not uncommon for there to be a 1-2 hour wait at McDonalds, Pizza Hut, and KFC in peak areas. There are a lot of fake McDonalds and fake Starbucks - the logos look the same but the name is slightly different.

-Taking the metro every day and an occasional taxi will cost you around $30-40 USD a month. Cell phone/internet is about the same, as well.

-Utilities will cost you around $15 USD a month.

-A good computer will cost you around $1000 USD.

-College tuition is about $1000 USD a year.

These numbers are based on some documentation our tour guide gave us, as well as numbers released by the government, as well as stuff found Googling. They may be off or may have changed since I was there, but this is generally what we were told by a government-sanctioned guide.

EDIT: On the positive side, you really won't meet nicer people anywhere. Every morning we got up early to see the city before it was filled with people, and in front of nearly every store, the employees gather and do morning calisthenics to music (imagine the Cha Cha slide, where the music tells you what step to do.. It's sort of the same there). They would always wave to us and say hello (they love using what little English they know), and multiple times they invited us to join them in their exercises, which we always did, much to their delight. They laughed and laughed at us, in a good natured way. Everyone was really helpful and kind and friendly. There were about 20 of us, all female Americans, and we felt like rockstars... People would stop and ask to take photos of us, or with us, or just freeze in their tracks and stare. It was bizarre, but pretty fun.

I think everyone should visit China once, to see it themselves and truly understand the people and what is happening to them, but they should never go back or continue to feed the tourism market. The people are wonderful but the government is committing so many atrocities, and in many cases the people (especially the older citizens) are so brainwashed they support it or defend it. Even the ones who don't are too scared to speak about it. When we asked our tour guide how he felt about some of the human rights violations, he looked incredibly uncomfortable and changed the subject. He told us that he had been trying for 15 years to get a visa to visit the US. They have a lottery system for visas. You have to pay a massive fee, something like $200 USD, just to enter, and if you're not selected you don't get your money back. One time he was selected, but they denied his visa anyway because they said that they thought he would leave and wouldn't come back. He even had a recommendation from a US Senator (the father of a person who had been in one of his tour groups), who said he would personally vouch for him and make sure he returns, and they still wouldn't approve it. After that he basically gave up trying. Their whole country is a prison - their own government won't let them out.

A couple of friends of mine worked for the US government in Beijing, building the embassy there. The stories they told me are crazy. When they arrived for orientation, they were told "The Chinese government is in your hotel room right now going through your things. If you return and find something missing, you might get it back once they've had time to review it. There's nothing you can do about it." Most of their laptops disappeared, then reappeared in their rooms a few weeks later, sometimes completely wiped. Some religious books were taken and never returned. Next time you complain about warrantless wiretapping or intrusive TSA agents, just take a moment to be thankful that you don't live in a country where just the words "right to privacy" are censored. The Chinese government also hired girls to pretend to flirt with them and ask them about their work. On an almost weekly basis, some group of pretty Chinese girls would come buy them drinks and flirt with them, then casually ask them about what the building they were working on looked like or where the plans were stored - weird stuff like that.

tl;dr: China is nutsballs.

neurad1 · 1 year

Progress?

DirtyN19 · 1 year

Who's raffing now?

Gravity13 · 1 year

I was a toddler when the first pic was taken.

Holy fuck.

[deleted] · 1 year

Shanghai makes Chicago look like a rest-stop on the side of the highway. It's massive, yet fun.

5daysago · 1 year

Looked better in 1990.

brknhrtd · 1 year

Meanwhile, rebuilding the at the World Trade Center in NYC is crawling along. As a NY-er, I find it embarrassing.

frolix8 · 1 year

Capitalism. It just works.

Side question: Do you want money or a blue sky?

Dan_Teh_Man · 1 year

Did something change?

ralvarez1983 · 1 year

now i really want to see a time-lapse video of those 20 years in like 5 min anyone got that clip ;)

fredisnice · 1 year

1990, really? I can't believe that's 20 years difference

nibbles200 · 1 year

I never could understand living in a dense city where your window view is into another persons window view... edit *r

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