Sustainable cities

SHANGHAI – You don’t know what overcrowding is until you’ve walked along Nanjing Road, this city’s main shopping strip, on the night of May Day, which also happens to be opening day to the public of the latest Chinese extravaganza, the 2010 World Exposition.

The crush of the crowd was so awful I thought I would end up on the Shanghai pavement as flattened as the kilo of black, pulpy, coin-shaped champoy that I clutched tightly – the only thing my mother wanted from Shanghai.

It felt like all 1.3 billion Chinese wanted to squeeze themselves into that shopping strip where the smells of dim sum, Chinese herbs and smelly tofu being deep-fried wafted into upscale shopping malls.

Fortunately, a platoon of cops arrived to bring order, and lo and behold, the crowd parted in the middle of the road. People sorted themselves out in two lanes, moving in opposite directions, with no one going to the other and walking against the flow. My champoy and I emerged in one piece.

Don’t you sometimes wish we had that kind of national discipline, and that kind of law enforcement? Those factors have helped China become an economic powerhouse, and create cities that it can present with pride to the world.

I arrived here Thursday night with buildings, residential rooftops and the Lupu and Nanpu Bridges, which span the Huangpu River, all lit up and ready for the next day’s spectacle, the opening ceremony of the World Expo.

My plane landed at what must have been the new terminal built for the Expo – everything smelled new – at the sprawling international airport in the new district of Pudong.

The taxi that drove me into the old district across the river through a tunnel was also brand-new. The 5.28-square-kilometer Expo site is off-limits to old taxis and private cars.

An official Chinese guide was quick to acknowledge that traffic has been one of the three biggest problems in Shanghai. In the past 30 years, with Beijing’s new policy of opening up, subways, overpasses, tunnels and new road networks were built and Pudong underwent rapid development. As in Beijing, bicycles were relegated to side streets to speed up traffic flow.

Shanghai’s second biggest problem, according to the Chinese guide, is pollution. Among their solutions: planting more trees and creating more green areas. Polluting factories were moved out of the city, where a number of them are now polluting the countryside.

The guide admitted that what Shanghai is doing “is far from enough.”

Its third biggest problem, the guide admitted, is overcrowding. Shanghai has eight million residents in the old and new districts, with daily transients swelling the number to 24 million.

Thirty years ago, the typical dwelling for a Shanghai resident was a 10-square-meter single-room house, for an average living space of two square meters per person. The guide was happy to point out that this average has since grown to 30 square meters, with some dwellings even having two bedrooms.

I had a glimpse of the old Shanghai when I left Nanjing Road and walked along side streets to avoid that crush of humanity. A stone’s throw from the glitter of the shopping district were unlit alleys with unlit walkups. In one single-room home, its door left wide open, a woman watched TV while seated on a bed that occupied more than half of the entire dwelling. A favorite home business seemed to be to cook for others; several areas looked like single-table food houses. Clothes were left hanging out to dry along the alleys, where people still have bicycles parked beside their homes. In these dark alleys, pirated DVDs are still sold.

In one alley, people waited in line outside a public toilet. Did those people live in the streets? Along Nanjing pink-cheeked women who looked like peasants from the countryside sat on the curb cuddling pink-cheeked children, doing nothing. The cops didn’t drive them away; I guess as long as the women didn’t stick out like a sore thumb in some showcase portion of the city or beg or harass anyone, vagrants are tolerated here.

Seeing how the other half of Shanghai lives, you can understand why China, despite being the world’s third largest economy, its high-tech enclaves and ultra-modern urban centers, is still classified as a developing country.

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Eradicating urban blight and creating livable, sustainable cities is the theme of the Shanghai Expo. How the host city is dealing with its urban problems should be a good case study.

The first step in dealing with the problem is to acknowledge it. The second is to confront it decisively. It helps if you have one of the biggest financial reserves in the world to throw into urban development. It also helps – at least the government – when it doesn’t have to worry too much about niceties in making its citizens do its bidding in the name of national progress.

The world hears complaints, but is generally prepared to look the other way. At the awesome opening ceremony at the flying saucer-shaped Expo Cultural Center, among the guests of Chinese President Hu Jintao was the president of the land of liberté, égalité, fraternité, Nicolas Sarkozy, who was in town together with his Italian wife Carla Bruni. She must have enjoyed the performance of Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli.

Jackie Chan attended the event. Chinese movie superstar Gong Li, an image model for French cosmetics giant L’Oreal, dropped by in a black gown and stiletto heels. L’Oreal is a sponsor of the Expo and the French pavilion.

Other VIPs were Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso. The Europeans are well ahead in winning friends in China.

We were represented by Vice President Noli de Castro.

The evening’s fireworks, combined with laser lights, dancing water fountains, riverboat show and LED spheres, lived up to Hu’s promise of an “unforgettable” Expo.

At the site itself, which was officially opened on May 1 by Shanghai officials, the Chinese pavilion stands out. The next Expo host cannot top this one. I also enjoyed our own pavilion, with its theme of “performing cities” to highlight our enjoyment of life.

The Expo color is green, for green urban communities, with technology working to make life better. In these communities, people enjoy a high quality of life and can breathe.

Nothing like overcrowded Nanjing Road, but the Expo is meant not just as a national showcase; it also highlights a country’s goals for urban development. After seeing how much Shanghai has developed in the past three decades, it looks capable of attaining its goals.