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China can learn Expo wisdom
By Wang Yong |
January 21, 2010, Thursday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
THE 2010 Shanghai World Expo that opens in May is destined to be a dynamic marketplace of ideas about how humankind can redefine and redeem many of the world's modern cities that have become soulless "urban deserts."
The six-month event titled "Better City, Better Life" is not just a showcase for China to sell its ancient wisdom in creating humane cities close to nature on waterways. It's also an emporium where China can learn valuable lessons about some foreign cities which have come a long way to bid farewell to "urban deserts" of cars, high-rises and little space for any pursuit but making money.
At this special moment - one hundred days away from the opening on May 1 of the Expo - every Chinese concerned with a better city and a better life should think hard about what Shanghai, and other Chinese cities, should look like in five, 10 or 20 years.
In editing today's article by Shahid Yusuf and Kaoru Nabeshima, two experts from the World Bank, I was glad to see that they favored a city free from the obsession with auto-mobility and urban sprawl that has shaped and shamed many modern Western cities caught up in man's silly desire to beat nature.
Some Chinese cities, oblivious to ancient Chinese architectural and urban planning wisdom, have followed the wrong model of urban sprawl seen in much of the modern West by adoring high-rises and cars. Yet the bigger danger is that, while the West has turned around to go greener (though no modern city is really green, it's only a matter of degree), many Chinese urban planners remain obsessed with cars and tall buildings, regarding them as a symbol of status and a measure of happiness.
I have bought two guqin (seven-stringed Chinese zither). Together they are nearly worth a new car, and many of my friends were wowed by my "luxury." But no one would say "wow" if I had spent the same amount of money on a car.
UN Under Secretary General Anna Kajumulo Tibaijuka says in her congratulatory letter to Shanghai's World Expo (today's C8 section of Shanghai Daily) that you can't have a better city life without enjoying the more intangible aspects of urban life, for example a city's culture and history. Tibaijuka is also executive director of the UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT).
A car and a house are tangible enough to show off your wealth (if you're not enslaved to a bank), but that's not about a better city life. Both Chinese ancient urban wisdom and Western cities' modern history reject the illusion about things material as the human objective.
After man has access to water, sanitation and housing, his or her sense of happiness largely depends on his or her level of spiritual enlightenment. Shanghai is beloved not for its chiseled skylines and freeways, but for its capacity to absorb all sorts of diverse cultures.
Indeed, many people grumble about cars racing along, narrow pedestrian walkways and noise pollution in Shanghai, but if you look downtown these problems may recede.
Almost every Sunday, my wife and I escape to a cozy guqin school on Huaihai Road. Worries from the mundane world vanish the moment you start to pluck a guqin in that French-style school building with a garden of bamboo, Buddhist sculptures and a fish pond.
If only China had more such schools and fewer cars. In this regard, China has a lot to learn from the best of two worlds.
The six-month event titled "Better City, Better Life" is not just a showcase for China to sell its ancient wisdom in creating humane cities close to nature on waterways. It's also an emporium where China can learn valuable lessons about some foreign cities which have come a long way to bid farewell to "urban deserts" of cars, high-rises and little space for any pursuit but making money.
At this special moment - one hundred days away from the opening on May 1 of the Expo - every Chinese concerned with a better city and a better life should think hard about what Shanghai, and other Chinese cities, should look like in five, 10 or 20 years.
In editing today's article by Shahid Yusuf and Kaoru Nabeshima, two experts from the World Bank, I was glad to see that they favored a city free from the obsession with auto-mobility and urban sprawl that has shaped and shamed many modern Western cities caught up in man's silly desire to beat nature.
Some Chinese cities, oblivious to ancient Chinese architectural and urban planning wisdom, have followed the wrong model of urban sprawl seen in much of the modern West by adoring high-rises and cars. Yet the bigger danger is that, while the West has turned around to go greener (though no modern city is really green, it's only a matter of degree), many Chinese urban planners remain obsessed with cars and tall buildings, regarding them as a symbol of status and a measure of happiness.
I have bought two guqin (seven-stringed Chinese zither). Together they are nearly worth a new car, and many of my friends were wowed by my "luxury." But no one would say "wow" if I had spent the same amount of money on a car.
UN Under Secretary General Anna Kajumulo Tibaijuka says in her congratulatory letter to Shanghai's World Expo (today's C8 section of Shanghai Daily) that you can't have a better city life without enjoying the more intangible aspects of urban life, for example a city's culture and history. Tibaijuka is also executive director of the UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT).
A car and a house are tangible enough to show off your wealth (if you're not enslaved to a bank), but that's not about a better city life. Both Chinese ancient urban wisdom and Western cities' modern history reject the illusion about things material as the human objective.
After man has access to water, sanitation and housing, his or her sense of happiness largely depends on his or her level of spiritual enlightenment. Shanghai is beloved not for its chiseled skylines and freeways, but for its capacity to absorb all sorts of diverse cultures.
Indeed, many people grumble about cars racing along, narrow pedestrian walkways and noise pollution in Shanghai, but if you look downtown these problems may recede.
Almost every Sunday, my wife and I escape to a cozy guqin school on Huaihai Road. Worries from the mundane world vanish the moment you start to pluck a guqin in that French-style school building with a garden of bamboo, Buddhist sculptures and a fish pond.
If only China had more such schools and fewer cars. In this regard, China has a lot to learn from the best of two worlds.
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