STCY Final

Yale Summer Session 2013Study of the City

Final ProjectPudong, Shanghai- Its Past, Present and Future

Yunfan Chandler Song

Study of the City Final Project: Pudong, Shanghai- Its Past, Present and Future 1

Introduction

China, after Deng Xiaoping’s “Open Door Policy” during the 1980’s, has quickly become one of the world’s

fastest growing nations. Shanghai as the most populous city in Mainland China and a world-renowned financial

center embodies this swift growth of Chinese economy and technology. Over the last 30 years, central government of

China as well as Shanghai local government have enforced effort on urban development, aiming to build Shanghai as

a global city model. Pudonghas been the major beneficiary of this tide of developments and urban reforms. In this

research paper, we are going to explore the historical background of Pudong, its current development as well as

bright future it stands for. The main focus will be put on Lujiazui, the CBD in Pudong and its influence not only in

Shanghai but also other major Chinese cities.

Historical Background of Shanghai and Pudong

In 1292, the county of Shanghai was founded in the current day Shanghai Old Town along the Shore of

Huangpu River. In 1551, the town under the protection of fortification walls developed into a minor commercial

distribution center. However, the Haijin Policy1 limited Shanghai’s transform into an influential commercial port

even though the city sat on such a geographical advantage. After the Opium War and the Nanjing Treaty, the

emperor of Qing Dynasty agreed to grant the British legal permission to rent and govern autonomously a piece of

land north of the Old Town. Following the British were the Americans and the French. In 1862, the French

concession dropped out of the arrangement and the British along with the American united to form the Shanghai

International Settlement.During the one hundred year between 1843 and 1943, three administrative authorities

existed in the metropolitan area of Shanghai: The Shanghai Municipal Council headed by the British, The Consul

Général headed by the French and the Chinese local government. These authorities all focused on improving

infrastructure such as roads and electricity, helping to build a basis for Shanghai to become the future metropolis.

The application of “western” urbanization philosophy soon had desirable effects on Puxi, the West Bank. However,

Pudong, the East Bank was still a large rural countryside. There used to be attempts to expand Shanghai urban area

beyond Puxi. However, due to the Anti-Japan War (1937-1945) and the Civil War between Chinese Communist Party

and Chinese Republic Party (1946-1949), these attempts were put into abeyance.

1The Haijin literally means “sea ban” and was a policy on maritime activities imposed during Ming Dynasty and Qing Dynasty.


Issues of Pudong during Mao Era and Deng Era

Chinese Urban developments had gone through a tough time under Mao’s radical policy trying to reduce the

inequality between the urban and the rural. Especially during the Cultural Revolution, urban productions were

distributed to remote areas, thus defeating the purpose of urban developments particularly in cities like Shanghai. In

the General Regulatory Plan of 1949, some original rural areas including Pudong were to be developed with regards

to the theory of organic dispersion. In contrast, most likely because of the high cost of connection across the

Huangpu River, the urbanization process in Pudong remained isolated and moved at a very slow pace.

After the Cultural Revolution, the central government led by Deng launched the “Open Door Policy” to reconnect

Chinese coastal cities with the world. In the General Regulatory Plan of 1986, some development projects were

planned for the Pudong riverfront due to the emergent demands for housing with higher living standards for the

increasingly augmented metropolitan population. However, because Pudong could only be accessed by ferryboats

across the river, its urbanization was still confronted by a lot of difficulties. Also, Deng’s policy focused mainly

onSouthern cities like Guangzhou and Shenzhen in rivalry with Hong Kong and Macau. Thus, Pudong’s boost did not

happen until late 1980’s. There used to be an old saying among Shanghai residents: “one would prefer a bed in Puxi

to a house to Pudong”. This indicates how undeveloped Pudong was in time and how unwillingly the populations

tend to move to Pudong.

Pudong’s Opportunity

Shanghai is the largest city by population in the People's Republic of China and the largest city proper by

population in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities of the PRC along with Beijing, Tianjin and

Chongqing and has a total population of over 23 million as of 2010. It is a major financial center and the busiest

container port in the world.

Pudong, literally means “East Bank”,is a state-level new area of Shanghai, China, situated along the east side

of the Huangpu River, across from the historic city center of Shanghai in Puxi. Formerly a little-developed

agricultural area that was linked only by ferries, Pudong has grown rapidly since the 1990s and emerged as China's

financial and commercial hub. Pudong is distinguished from Puxi ("West Bank"), the older part of Shanghai. It has an

area of 1210.4 km² and according to the 2010 Census, a population of 5,044,430 inhabitants, 1.9 million more than

in 2000.


A large factor of today’s Pudong’s success is its ideal geographical location at the Yangtze River Delta2. The

central government after the launch of the “Open Door Policy” soon recognized the potentials Pudong would stand

for. Pudong, for a long period of time, has been identified vaguely as the land east of Huangpu River. By 1990, the

administrative boundaries had been identified clearly and the establishment of the Pudong New District was

approved on an area of 350 square kilometers. Not long after, the area expanded to 522 square kilometers, following

by a government decision of merging Nanhui District to Pudong New District, strengthening further the role of

Pudong in Shanghai as well as the Yangtze River Delta. Figure 1 shows the trend of Pudong’s expansion indicated by

the red lines (the longer red line indicates the boundary of Shanghai metropolitan area).

Figure 1 Pudong's expansion: maps of Pudong in comparison to Shanghai metropolitan area in 1990, 1996 and 2006 respectively

In fact, in 1918, Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the leader in the Chinese democratic revolution and the first president of

the Republic of China, initiated the earliest thought to develop Pudong. Dr. Sun proposed in his writing of the

Strategies of founding the Republic to “build a new city center in Pudong, and to create a new bund by constructing a

canal in Pudong”. He envisioned Pudong being New York City in a distant future. Ultimately, the proposal was

abandoned due to political as well as economic crisis. Nevertheless, Dr. Sun’s ideology at least influenced the core

philosophy of Pudong development.

Almost seven decades later, Chinese economy experienced a groundbreaking revolution, from a relatively

conservative government distributed economy to a market-oriented one. Chinese central government initiated

several campaign throughout China, calling “technology for victory” and “urbanization”, unintentionally attracting

more and more people to the cities like Shanghai. 2The Yangtze River Delta, also called the Golden Triangle, generally comprises the triangular-shaped territory of one Direct-Controlled Municipality and two provinces, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, making it largest concentration of adjacent metropolitan areas in the world. 160 million people (13% of the national population) account for more than 27% of China’s industrial output. (Source: Wikipedia)


Policies and Leaderships regarding Pudong Development Project

In 1984, the Shanghai Municipal Government along with the State Council Research Group for Reviving

Shanghai proposed A Report Outline on the Economic Development Strategy of Shanghai. This report was composed

of three plans, one of which was concerning the expansion of Pudong to further eastward. SUPDI, Shanghai Urban

Planning and Design Institute was assigned by the Municipal Government and soon started to work with experts in

different fields such as economics and sociology to explore new ideas for dealing with appropriate urbanizations

under a fast growing market.

According to Yawei Chen, after replacing the old urban planning system with the new system, which

eliminated the allocation system and introduced market mechanism, planners need to find sources to power the

urban growth3. Admittedly, the researchers carefully studied American sociologies such as the Chicago School and

the Los Angeles School, thus putting emphasis on the concept of Central Business District (CBD). Pudong was seen as

an ideal location for this type of urban development. The river served as an important boundary to control the

influence of the CBD even if it failed so that it would not spread to Puxi, the historic CBD.

Seeing the success of Shenzhen emerging from a small village into a metropolis just in decades, Shanghai Municipal

Government was rather confident about the Pudong Development Project. However, Shanghai aside from being a

metropolis, also had political importance and was a revenue generator. Thus, experimenting such a project in

Pudong could not allow failure, or it would harm both the politics and the economics. Under the leadership of Mayor

Zhu Rongji, who later became the Chinese Premier, the Pudong Development Research Consultant Group (PDRCG)

was formed to prepare for the final project plans.

Political riots during late 1980’s did not affect the development negatively, as President Jiang Zemin and

Premier Li Peng influenced by Deng Xiaoping decided to fully open up Shanghai to the western world in showing

Chinese vision into the future. Their actions tightly followed the essence of the “Open Door Policy” and affirmed

their goals on Pudong development as “Developing Pudong, Reviving Shanghai, Serving China, Facing the World”.

Starting from Lujiazui

Lujiazui is a peninsula formed by Huangpu River extending from Pudong into Puxi. This condense area was

3Source: Chen, Y.W., Shanghai Pudong, Urban Development in an Era of Global-local Interaction. Delft: Delft University Press. 2007


where the government decided to build the Lujiazui Central Business District on. Planners aimed to link Shanghai

with the rest of the world by building an internationally influential CBD in rivalry of other Asian mature CBD in Hong

Kong, Taipei and Singapore.

After the general ideas and the big picture had been laid out by 1980’s, the Preparatory Committee of

Pudong New District held a competition in searching for the best urban design. Competitors included Richard

Rogers from the UK, Dominique Perrault from France, Toyo Ito from Japan, Massimiliano Fuksas from Italy and the

local Shanghai Urban Planning and Design Institute (SUPDI)4. While hoping to attract global attentions by

competitions, the planners were also looking for a perfect fit of western model onto this special case of a Chinese

growing metropolis. Ideally, structures designed by renowned architects would next be integrated into the market-

oriented principles.

Figure 2 Location of Lujiazui in Pudong, indicated by the red lines (Source: Stamen.com)

Richard Roger’s model applied a concept with a perfect circular figure located in the center of the Lujiazui

and from the circle’s center six radial roads extended centrifugally connecting the new center with the rest

ofPudong. The building blocks followed the shape of the circulation form and theheight of towers ascends from

outside to the core. Roger’s proposal adopted theclassic principles for creating an ideal town plan in the West.

Similar to manyexamples in Europe, this circular pattern with its radial development proved to bethe most effective

way of coping with the city’s expansion and can createconvenient connections to the surrounding spaces. This model

was somewhat similar to the Concentric Ring Model developed by the Chicago School of Sociology. Figure 3 details

Roger’s design.

4Source: Chen, Y.W., Shanghai Pudong, Urban Development in an Era of Global-local Interaction. Delft: Delft University Press. 2007

Study of the City Final Project: Pudong, Shanghai

Figure 35 Roger's Scheme is based on a circular configuration around a central park, with a general structure of varying heights that optimized access to daylight while creating open perspective angles to the river and the city. From the park

six main road axes radiate out, the major part of the network giving priority to the circulation of pedestrians and cyclists in the district, and public transport to access the city center

Other designs also attracted attention due their uniqueness in applying western ideas int

According to Toyo Ito’s ideas, The skeleton of the city is defined by the infrastructure of the subway at the lowest

underground level, and the road system above. A park formation was developed in which city trolley buses, bicycles

and pedestrians moving on the ground can interact freely. Commercial, business, sports, residential, and other

structures are arranged horizontally in 'bar code' formation. Lines of traffic are driven through the creek network

destroying this parallel order6.Dominique Perrault’s Scheme sought architectural aesthetics, emphasizing a free

expression of structure in order for a spectacular perspective from the Bund.

However, while the competition was being held, some of the structures such as the “Oriental Pearl” te

were already under construction. All of the international designs failed to recognize the

were meant to serve as benchmarks for future plans.

Finally, the local institute SUPDI became the winner for its holistic

advantages from other international designs but well integrated existing buildings into the new system. The idea of

having a central public park was dropped at first and was replaced by an extended avenue, “Centur

passed the site and connected Puxi to Pudong through a tunnel under the river.

around this “axis”. The zoning plan came along with the design also reserved specific areas in Lujiazui that were for

different functions such as retail stores, finance, housing and trade (shown in Figure 4).

5Source: Rogers Stirk Harbor + Partners6 Source: Toyo Ito (Architectural Monographs No

Pudong, Shanghai- Its Past, Present and Future

Roger's Scheme is based on a circular configuration around a central park, with a general structure of varying heights that optimized access to daylight while creating open perspective angles to the river and the city. From the park

iate out, the major part of the network giving priority to the circulation of pedestrians and cyclists in the district, and public transport to access the city center

Other designs also attracted attention due their uniqueness in applying western ideas int

The skeleton of the city is defined by the infrastructure of the subway at the lowest


estrians moving on the ground can interact freely. Commercial, business, sports, residential, and other


nique Perrault’s Scheme sought architectural aesthetics, emphasizing a free

in order for a spectacular perspective from the Bund.

However, while the competition was being held, some of the structures such as the “Oriental Pearl” te

were already under construction. All of the international designs failed to recognize the existing architectures that

for future plans.

Finally, the local institute SUPDI became the winner for its holistic design. Their design absorbed all types of


having a central public park was dropped at first and was replaced by an extended avenue, “Centur

passed the site and connected Puxi to Pudong through a tunnel under the river. Future developments were closely

The zoning plan came along with the design also reserved specific areas in Lujiazui that were for

functions such as retail stores, finance, housing and trade (shown in Figure 4).

Toyo Ito (Architectural Monographs No 41)

6

Roger's Scheme is based on a circular configuration around a central park, with a general structure of varying heights that optimized access to daylight while creating open perspective angles to the river and the city. From the park

iate out, the major part of the network giving priority to the circulation of pedestrians and cyclists

Other designs also attracted attention due their uniqueness in applying western ideas into an Asian city.

The skeleton of the city is defined by the infrastructure of the subway at the lowest


estrians moving on the ground can interact freely. Commercial, business, sports, residential, and other


nique Perrault’s Scheme sought architectural aesthetics, emphasizing a free

However, while the competition was being held, some of the structures such as the “Oriental Pearl” television tower

existing architectures that

Their design absorbed all types of


having a central public park was dropped at first and was replaced by an extended avenue, “Century Avenue”, that

Future developments were closely

The zoning plan came along with the design also reserved specific areas in Lujiazui that were for


Figure 4 Lujiazui Zoning Plan

Figure 5 View of Lujiazui from the Bund in 1900, 1990 and 2013respectively

The Main purpose of developing Lujiazui was creating a “global” CBD in the context of a global city. Sassen

defines global cities as strategic sites for the management of the global economy and the production of the most

advanced services and financial operations. The word “globalization” had been extremely emphasized during the

constructions and planning. By incorporating top companies and banks such as Citigroup and HSBC, Lujiazui

targeted to interconnect the world by the most advanced and updated information. A core value in Lujiazui project

was to build a self-sufficient city with the inclusion of over 80 financial institutions, more than 40 of which were

under international and overseas investment.

Skyscraper race

The panoramic view of Lujiazui from the Bund has been the “face” of the fast growing Chinese economy and

technology. Within 10 years, all types of skyscrapers boomed from flat land.After the completion of the “Oriental

Pearl” in 1994, Jinmao building immediately started in 1995, aiming at a height of 420 meters. When completely,

Jinmao received widespread praise not only for its new material and technique, but also the fact that Jinmao


conveyed the image of a pagoda and played a major role in provoking the landmark architecture in China both

morphologically and mentally. Soon, constructions of a group of skyscrapers of over 200 meters initiated. In 1998,

two most architecturally interesting buildings, the Bank of China Tower and the Bocom Tower started to rise. The

Bocom Tower then became the office building for China Bank of Communication headquartered in Shanghai. By

2002, not only had the Citi Group Tower and the Aurora Tower been completed, but also series of high-rise

residential towers in south Lujiazui. In 2004, after 7 years of debate, the construction of the Shanghai World

Financial Center was finally approved. The building was completed by 2008 and became a model of Chinese

skyscraper being multi-functional. When finished, the SWFC was the second highest building in the world, at a

height of 492 meters.Luxury hotel chains such as Hyatt and many other retail stores were introduced to these

skyscrapers. By 2014, an even more ambitious skyscraper, the Shanghai Tower, will be topped out at 632 meters,

making it the second tallest building by then, just behind the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. Shanghai now has the second

most skyscrapers in the world after Hong Kong. Skyscrapers have occupied most of the usable land by 2013.

Compared to a decade ago when a few skyscrapers were still standing among shipyards and slums, Pudong in 2013

has experienced a massive change. Many experts credited this series of constructions with the “China Speed”. The

notion of creating a vertical city (Chicago School) rather than a horizontal one (Los Angeles School) works in Pudong

well. This tide of building super-tall structures also influenced other cities around China including Guangzhou,

Shenzhen and Nanjing. The architectural style in Pudong, especially that in Lujiazui, stimulated the new “Chinese”

style combined post-modernism with pragmatism. One notable change in Pudong’s skyscrapers constructions is

that, gradually, architects and managing companies of buildings started to realize the importance of environmental

sustainability and aim to reduce consumption of energy and water. Nowadays, only “green” structure would be

approved in Lujiazui. The CBD again becomes the leadership not only in Shanghai but also China in striving for

environmentally friendly urban development.


Figure 6 The night view of Lujiazui CBD from East Century Avenue in 2013 (the Shanghai Tower on the left is under construction)

Criticism

Though Lujiazui was and still is one of the most successful projects in China, criticisms still came after

compliments. It is accused of being deprived of humanism and individuality under the shadows of monotonous

architectural functions. The lacks of pedestrian pavements and cyclist paths have urged Lujiazui to be a motor-

vehicle-dominated zone. This problem was not fully solved until a circular pedestrian bridge and underground

systems were established in 2007 (shown in Figure 7). Also, not sufficient additional streets accompany Century

Avenue, thus causing traffic jam often. As population grows, streets are overloaded with cars and buses and the

tunnel from Puxi no longer is sufficient. Overall, the transportation inside the CBD zone as well as from Puxi

remained a problem.

Figure 7 the circular pedestrian bridge over the crossroad and the exit of the tunnel


Beyond Lujiazui

At the 14th Chinese Communist Party Congress in 1992, the central government formulated a strategy to

“seize the opportunity to develop and open up Shanghai Pudong, to build Shanghai as the dragon head and become

an international economic, financial, and trading center, so as to drive the growth of the Yangtze River Delta and, in

turn, accelerate the whole economy of the east China coast”7.

As the “dragon head” of Yangtze River, Shanghai should capture opportunities from Chinese enormous expanding

industry and economy and in return influence the future of China. However, questions and concerns remained

between people that Pudong would become purely “concrete mass” or an organic development that not only

included architecture but also integrated people. Italian architect Vittorio Gregotti suggested that Lujiazui should be

re-organized into smaller grids in order to connect buildings intimately with people and catch public interests. The

developments in Pudong later were very mindful about these types of concerns. The circular pedestrian bridge

shown in Figure 6 is also an example of integrating people into landscape. Not only does the pedestrian bridge

provide convenience in crossing the street, it also becomes a famous tourist attraction for people to enjoy Lujiazui

architectures.

Beside Lujiazui, a few other projects started to rise around the same time. They included two bridges

crossing Huangpu River, one bridge crossing Hangzhou Harbor, a free trade zone in Waigaoqiao, a new international

airport as well as other communication system such as the subway and the maglev trains.

Developing transportation was meant to closely connect the two sides of the river by having subway passing

through tunnels or over bridges. Subway system really provides people who work in the city and live the suburban

with convenience. Time and again the subway system expands to reach almost every corner of the metropolitan area.

Figure 8 shows a subway map of Shanghai, taking into account of the maglev train.

7Source: Zhai Hailin, Pudong- A missed opportunity for Metropolitan China


Figure 8 Shanghai Metro Map (Huangpu River indicated by a cyan-colored line)

With improvement of transportation formed the three main axes in the big planning picture:

x Huangpu River axis, which connects the urban area along the river, and the riverside open spaces;

x Lujiazui CBD- Central Park- International Airport axis, which extends the traditional axis in the west of

Shanghai into the hinterland of Pudong;

x Seaside axis, which connects the harbors in Waigaoqiao, International Airport, Lingang New City etc.

Above expansion boosted series of constructions of large residential communities for working class. Between

the CBD, residential communities, factories and harbors were vast areas of transition zones, which were later used

to develop Zhangjiang High Technology Park and other advanced light industries such as Bose.

Figure 9 Pudong International Airport and Waigaoqiao Free Trade Zone on the map of Shanghai

Looking to the future

Indeed, Pudong is a successful project, not only on the scale of Shanghai but also that of Mainland China. The

idea of a plot land containing a CBD, ports, trade zones, an airport, high technology industry and sophisticated

transportation system inspired the future development in other major Chinese city. Among these, the CBD has been

the most influential, connecting Shanghai closely with the world by incorporating foreign companies and banks.


Pudong is a fairly new project and has only gotten better during these years. Though faced with different types of

difficulties, the planner successfully absorbed western ideas and intelligently combined with Shanghai’s special

situation. The other three direct-controlled municipal cities, Beijing, Tianjin and Chongqing all initiated their new

district developments aiming to imitate Pudong for its huge success. Other large cities, especially the one with

riverfronts such as Guangzhou, Wuhan and Nanjing tried to learn from how Pudong is directly interlocked with the

other side of the river.

Conclusion

Provided with the historical background and the earlier difficulties it faced, we are able to understand how

policies and leaderships actually played roles in the Pudong Development Project. The introduction to some of the

western ideas was indeed crucial to Pudong’s design as well as its ability to attract business in the future. But again,

today’s Pudong does benefit from Lujiazui, a concentrated, multi-functional and efficient CBD. It is Lujiazui’s success

that determined the direction of Pudong Development and laid foundation to other facilities such as Waigaoqiao

Free Trade Zone, Zhangjiang High Tech Park and Pudong International Airport.


Bibliography

Chen, Yawei. Shanghai Pudong: Urban Development in an Era of Global-Local Interaction. N.p.: Delft University Press, 2007.

"Lujiazui." In Wikipedia.

Parra, Giovanny. Shanghai Pudong. Photograph. http://500px.com/photo/9414001.

"Pudong." In Wikipedia.

Shanghai Metro Map. Photograph. Exploremetro. http://www.exploremetro.com/static/pdf/en/shanghai.pdf.

Shanghai Tower. Photograph. Archo2o. http://www.arch2o.com/shanghai-tower-marshall-strabala/#prettyPhoto/1/.

Wei, Fang. Luijiazui Skyline. Photograph. http://www.flickr.com/photos/fangwei/8266468721/.

Zhai, Hailin. "Observation of Urban Pudong." Shanghai Pudong- a Missed Opportunity for Metropolitan China, 2012.

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