The Newsletter 52 Winter 2009

The Shanghai model

Gregory Bracken

More than 50 percent of the world’s population lives in urban areas. However, the view that the world can be simply divided into urban and rural is somewhat naïve. The urban environment embraces a huge range of varying types, from the rural village to the glittering global metropolis. Even the urban fabric itself contains a bewildering array of types, everything from the sleepy suburb to the 24-hour dynamo that spins at a city’s centre. Gregory Bracken examines the factors which shape our cities and offers Shanghai as a model for future megalopolises.

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