In Rush to Build, Property Stumbles
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A view of the Pudong district of Shanghai, where the new Shanghai Tower is being built.
If you have not seen the famous Shanghai skyline recently, look again: You may be in for a surprise.
A new skyscraper has begun to appear on the Pudong side of the Huangpu River, joining the mass of high rises that have sprung up there since the area began to be developed in the 1990s. Once it is finished, in 2014, the Shanghai Tower, a twisting, glass-encased structure 632-meters, or 2,073-feet, tall, will dominate the skyline.
Projects like these have come to epitomize the meteoric rise of China’s economy and the breathtaking pace of the country’s transformation. From Kashgar in the far west to Guangzhou in the southeast, property development has shaped cities and landscapes, creating tens of thousands of high-rise buildings, millions of jobs and many a multimillionaire in the process.
