Analysis of Shanghai's Commerce - urbanistic considered

Seminar paper from the year 2003 in the subject Art - Architecture / History of Construction grade: very good Technical University of Graz (Faculty for Architekture / Institute City Development) language: English abstract: The Yangtze River Delta Shanghai-Nanjing-Hangzhou is undergoing a radical upheavalprocess - the dimension and the speed of Shanghai's development exceeds Europeanthinking.Between 1978 and 1990 about €3 billion were spent on urban infrastructure projects in thenext six years between 1991 and 1997 the investment exceeded €18 billion. In the earlyeighties the construction of the whole public mass transport system started from scratchfollowing the strategic neglecting by the Central Government in Beijing. Today after thereforms of Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin a former mayor of Shanghai it is said that thecity's large construction projects are the PRC Government's 'cuddles'.2002 about 80 urban infrastructure projects with an investment of €65 billion were underconstruction supporting ?AIR TRAFFIC ?RAIL TRAFFIC ?ROAD TRAFFIC and ?SHIPPING.In my opinion the rapid changes in the transport infrastructure will change more than themap of the city or the mere building reality - it will change the city's timescale.Firstly I want to focus on the meaning of the transport issue for China's and Shanghai'seconomy and competitiveness. Shanghai has a great potential but today it lacks fluency.The PRC Central Government with it's rising conscious of China's global role has realized thisfact. The new economic and political ambition has overcome stone-age Maoism of bleedingwhite 'decadent' cities - Pudong New Area with China's stock exchange in Luijazuidemonstrates this ambition.The strategic position on the China Sea and the estuary of the Yangtze River enablesShanghai to function as East Asia's main gate both for domestic and supranational trade.The current deep water port and dredging projects combined with new road and railconn