Wednesday, March 7, 2007

Flying over Shanghai: Miles and miles of high rises

We flew today from Beijing, China’s political capital, to Shanghai, the country’s economic, manufacturing, and shipping hub. With about 17 million people, Shanghai is now the world’s largest city. Although the two Chinese cities look close together on the map, the immensity of this country can be deceiving—they’re actually as far apart as Denver is from L.A.

As we flew low over Shanghai on our approach, I was struck by the miles and miles of high rise building. There are a few commercial structures that stand out architecturally, but there are thousands more identical and non-descript residential apartment buildings about 12 stories tall that look like they came out of the same cookie cutter.

Shanghai was the region first opened up to the world. It has the highest per capita income, the highest job growth, and the most desirable private sector jobs. It also has some of the worst environmental pollution on Planet Earth. The most obvious is the sickening orange-brown air pollution that cuts visibility to less than a mile and sucks the color from everything. This depressing gray-only scene looks right out of a movie about a nuclear winter. I can’t imagine what psychological and physical effects seeing and breathing this stuff would have on the residents here.

We then traveled by bus to Suzhou, a high-tech manufacturing center about 60 miles from the airport but still within the metro area. This area has huge amounts of foreign investment, some of the most sophisticated electronics manufacturing in the world, and a very skilled and well educated work force. In all of China, even elementary school children take eight different subjects a day and attend school from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Will our American kids be ready to compete in this global economy? We’ll find out more tomorrow.

-By Dave Garth
Submitted 7 a.m. PST

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