As I looked at Sydney and its sprawl in my last post, I wanted to look into a city that has done the opposite, and gone upwards at an amazing rate. This city is Shanghai, and its high rise apartments and high density living was something that stuck with me after my visit.
In January of 2014 I went to visit my girlfriend who had been learning Mandarin at a local school in Shanghai.
I had never had a burning desire to travel to China, but with this opportunity I decided to go.
My first thought when I arrived in Shanghai was the sheer amount of people.
There were people everywhere!
I felt constricted and confined whenever I walked down the streets to grab some food or to even look around. My second thought was the size of the city. Skyscrapers loomed upwards everywhere I looked, not that I had much of a chance to stop and stare because I would be shuffled along in the great moving mass of people.
My third and last thought was of the air pollution. It was terrible. Smog and pollutants hung heavy in the air and only a week after my arrival I felt slightly sick and not 100% healthy.
So for me, Shanghai was jam-packed, tall and heavily polluted.
In general terms, Shanghai is the largest city in China with a population of around 24 million people and a density of around 9,400 people per square mile. The population has grown immensely in the last 30 years, going from 11 million in 1982 to 24 million in 2014.
With the rapid population growth has come rapid industrialisation. I found the most amazing statistic regarding China's construction rate. In 2005 there were nearly 7,000 buildings of 11 stories or more, which had been constructed in just 15 years.
So mainly due to necessity, China has built upwards into a very high density city. This has allowed an exceptionally large populace to live in the city and it has made Shanghai a thriving commercial hub for China.
However, my biggest concern when I was in Shanghai and what is the biggest issue facing the city is their air pollution. The fumes from the millions and millions of cars, plus the dust and debris from all the construction has made the city highly toxic. An interesting article on the subject can be found here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/10586296/Shanghai-considers-arming-residents-with-anti-pollution-masks.html
and here:
http://qz.com/155101/todays-air-pollution-level-in-shanghai-is-insane/
The World Health Organisation, on their website, recommends that there should be no intake of PM 2.5 particle matter (particles in the air that are the most hazardous) more than a level of 20 (on an index), with any levels over 300 considered highly dangerous. Shanghai sits in the mid-200s, and has had days of over 550!!!!!
(Interestingly, these are the worst countries for air pollution, have a look http://www.news.com.au/travel/world-travel/countries-with-the-worst-air-pollution-ranked-by-world-health-organisation/story-e6frfqai-1227040198863)
I remember there was an iPhone app that showed the current pollution for each day, some days were in the 300s. I was shocked, considering Australia sits below 10 on that index.
In summary, Shanghai has chosen to go upwards with a construction blitz to house enormous population, yet that has made the city a highly polluted and toxic one.
I highly doubt if they can fix the problem now, and soon we will most likely see the effects of their extreme high density living.
So after Shanghai, I want to go back to Australia and look at a city that I lived in for 5 years. The wonderful Capital Canberra.
No comments:
Post a Comment