Recent from talks
Urban planning of Shanghai
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Urban planning of Shanghai
The urban planning of Shanghai refers to various phases of planning and development of Shanghai, presently the largest city in China and one of the largest in the world. The topic is the focus of the city's Urban Planning Museum, located in People's Square beside City Hall.
Shanghai began as a fishing village at the confluence of the Wusong and Huangpu Rivers during the early medieval period. Under the Yuan, the Songjiang native Huang Daopo introduced new strains of cotton and improved techniques for working and dyeing it, improving the area's economic conditions just as the upper reaches of the Wusong River were thoroughly silting up, creating the modern Suzhou Creek and shifting commerce to the Huangpu. Under the Ming, Shanghai was raised in status from a town to a new county seat. A massive city wall was erected and the city's many canals were used to create a wide moat around it.
Even after the city's promotion in status and the establishment of one of the country's few official international ports, however, it was allowed to develop fairly organically. Streets generally ran north to south and east to west, but the city's canals were far more important as means of transport. No effort was made to bring the town into compatibility with traditional Chinese urban planning as codified in the Rites of Zhou's Kaogongji.
The United Kingdom took and plundered Shanghai in 1842 during the last phase of the First Opium War. Under the terms of the Treaty of Nanjing, the city was reopened to foreign trade as one of the first five treaty ports. An area of farmland around the city was yielded to foreign settlement in the form of a permanent lease. Consul Balfour laid out the initial plan of the British Concession along the west bank of the Huangpu from Yangjing Creek near the northern gate of the Chinese city to the south bank of Suzhou Creek. The commercial establishments along the river bank were the beginning of the city's Bund. The French soon followed, taking the southern Bund, a strip of land between the British lease and the Chinese city, and a wider area northwest of the city.
During this era, Shanghai's central areas near the Huangpu River developed into a commercial hub. The foreign concessions were governed by municipal bodies established by the Anglo-Americans and France, Russia, and Japan. Around the colonial core of the city, the Chinese controlled areas also expanded and drew internal migration from elsewhere in China. Urban governance in this period was inconsistent and there was almost no city planning.
Beginning in 1853, refugees from cities destroyed by the Taiping Rebellion and from the Chinese city after its conquest by the Small Sword Society quickly ballooned the population of the foreign territories from having no official Chinese residents to somewhere between 300,000 and 500,000. The territories expanded and developed, with the colonial administrators attempting to create a "model settlement" along the lines of 19th-century London and Paris with paved streets, a tram system, a pure and continuous water supply, and sewage treatment adequate to minimize outbreaks of cholera. The British and French administrators had continual difficulty in coordinated planning but generally the British area around Nanjing Road developed into the city's dense commercial center while the French Concession was more open and residential. After the provision of an American concession, it merged with the British area as the Shanghai International Settlement while the French area remained separately administered.
Having established a Greater Shanghai in 1927 that combined the administration of the old city (Nanshi) and the Chinese suburbs north of the international settlements (Zhabei), the Nationalist Government of the Republic of China in Nanjing formed an urban planning commission of both Chinese experts and foreign consultants. Their "Greater Shanghai Plan" (t 民國大上海計劃, s 民国大上海计划, Mínguó Dà Shànghǎi Jìhuà) published in July 1929 aimed to create greater autonomy for the Chinese by creating a new planned city at Jiangwan, shifting the Chinese government offices and center of population northeast between the international settlement and the expanding international port along the Yangtze River. The plan included rail and port expansions and a system of broad rectilinear streets to alleviate traffic congestion. The plan also designated around 15% of the area for parks and open spaces, with the most ambitious element being a civic center, occupying 333 acres (1,350,000 m2) and including a 50 m (160 ft) high pagoda and Washington-style reflecting pool. The plan was rendered moot by the Japanese conquest and occupation of Shanghai between 1937 and 1945. The Japanese destroyed surviving public works created under the plan's guidance and eliminated the city's foreign enclaves. Upon their surrender, the Republic of China refused to restore the privileged foreign territories and the relocation of government offices and population was unneeded.
A second master plan was instead drafted by a city planning board established in 1946. This plan placed a great deal of emphasis on its relationship with broader regional planning. In particular, it proposed the development of Pudong on the east bank of the Huangpu and the establishment of bridge and tunnel connections between it and central Shanghai. This plan was still in the process of enactment when the Nationalist defeat in the Chinese Civil War led to its annulment, the People's Liberation Army entering the city in 1949.
Hub AI
Urban planning of Shanghai AI simulator
(@Urban planning of Shanghai_simulator)
Urban planning of Shanghai
The urban planning of Shanghai refers to various phases of planning and development of Shanghai, presently the largest city in China and one of the largest in the world. The topic is the focus of the city's Urban Planning Museum, located in People's Square beside City Hall.
Shanghai began as a fishing village at the confluence of the Wusong and Huangpu Rivers during the early medieval period. Under the Yuan, the Songjiang native Huang Daopo introduced new strains of cotton and improved techniques for working and dyeing it, improving the area's economic conditions just as the upper reaches of the Wusong River were thoroughly silting up, creating the modern Suzhou Creek and shifting commerce to the Huangpu. Under the Ming, Shanghai was raised in status from a town to a new county seat. A massive city wall was erected and the city's many canals were used to create a wide moat around it.
Even after the city's promotion in status and the establishment of one of the country's few official international ports, however, it was allowed to develop fairly organically. Streets generally ran north to south and east to west, but the city's canals were far more important as means of transport. No effort was made to bring the town into compatibility with traditional Chinese urban planning as codified in the Rites of Zhou's Kaogongji.
The United Kingdom took and plundered Shanghai in 1842 during the last phase of the First Opium War. Under the terms of the Treaty of Nanjing, the city was reopened to foreign trade as one of the first five treaty ports. An area of farmland around the city was yielded to foreign settlement in the form of a permanent lease. Consul Balfour laid out the initial plan of the British Concession along the west bank of the Huangpu from Yangjing Creek near the northern gate of the Chinese city to the south bank of Suzhou Creek. The commercial establishments along the river bank were the beginning of the city's Bund. The French soon followed, taking the southern Bund, a strip of land between the British lease and the Chinese city, and a wider area northwest of the city.
During this era, Shanghai's central areas near the Huangpu River developed into a commercial hub. The foreign concessions were governed by municipal bodies established by the Anglo-Americans and France, Russia, and Japan. Around the colonial core of the city, the Chinese controlled areas also expanded and drew internal migration from elsewhere in China. Urban governance in this period was inconsistent and there was almost no city planning.
Beginning in 1853, refugees from cities destroyed by the Taiping Rebellion and from the Chinese city after its conquest by the Small Sword Society quickly ballooned the population of the foreign territories from having no official Chinese residents to somewhere between 300,000 and 500,000. The territories expanded and developed, with the colonial administrators attempting to create a "model settlement" along the lines of 19th-century London and Paris with paved streets, a tram system, a pure and continuous water supply, and sewage treatment adequate to minimize outbreaks of cholera. The British and French administrators had continual difficulty in coordinated planning but generally the British area around Nanjing Road developed into the city's dense commercial center while the French Concession was more open and residential. After the provision of an American concession, it merged with the British area as the Shanghai International Settlement while the French area remained separately administered.
Having established a Greater Shanghai in 1927 that combined the administration of the old city (Nanshi) and the Chinese suburbs north of the international settlements (Zhabei), the Nationalist Government of the Republic of China in Nanjing formed an urban planning commission of both Chinese experts and foreign consultants. Their "Greater Shanghai Plan" (t 民國大上海計劃, s 民国大上海计划, Mínguó Dà Shànghǎi Jìhuà) published in July 1929 aimed to create greater autonomy for the Chinese by creating a new planned city at Jiangwan, shifting the Chinese government offices and center of population northeast between the international settlement and the expanding international port along the Yangtze River. The plan included rail and port expansions and a system of broad rectilinear streets to alleviate traffic congestion. The plan also designated around 15% of the area for parks and open spaces, with the most ambitious element being a civic center, occupying 333 acres (1,350,000 m2) and including a 50 m (160 ft) high pagoda and Washington-style reflecting pool. The plan was rendered moot by the Japanese conquest and occupation of Shanghai between 1937 and 1945. The Japanese destroyed surviving public works created under the plan's guidance and eliminated the city's foreign enclaves. Upon their surrender, the Republic of China refused to restore the privileged foreign territories and the relocation of government offices and population was unneeded.
A second master plan was instead drafted by a city planning board established in 1946. This plan placed a great deal of emphasis on its relationship with broader regional planning. In particular, it proposed the development of Pudong on the east bank of the Huangpu and the establishment of bridge and tunnel connections between it and central Shanghai. This plan was still in the process of enactment when the Nationalist defeat in the Chinese Civil War led to its annulment, the People's Liberation Army entering the city in 1949.