Unique Place
Sometimes, when one has travelled a little too much in a short period of time, things and places have a tendency to blur into mundane conformity. Airports, buses, train stations, public transportation, highways, hotels- they are all the same, right? In many ways they are, and for that you can blame a select group of transnational firms and star architects who just can’t stop pumping out near-identical buildings the world over. Paris? Beijing? Doesn’t matter, make that terminal huge, white and cavernous.
I admit that, in moments of fatigue and weakness, I subscribe to this view, as evidenced by my earlier post Universal Place. I surrender my critical faculties and lap up the rhetoric surrounding globalization, in which we are told the world is become smaller, more homogenous and, ultimately, more ‘Western’. This approach seems particularly popular in the realm of contemporary urban studies; during my recent studies of urbanization and development in London, I was subjected to a virtual onslaught of theorists trumpeting the rise of a ’single, global urban discourse’ and the ‘global’ city. Urban areas the world over, despite an immense diversity in historical, cultural and politico-economic circumstances, are increasing growing, changing and looking the same. Global economics is killing off the culture of difference, slowly but surely, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the growth of similar urban forms.
This viewpoint has, similarly, permeated the popular press as well. While some write in awe of the rise of ‘Western’ skyscrapers and ‘modern’ highways in the mega-cities of the developing world, others lament the destruction of local culture to make way for the generic landscapes of mega-malls, office parks and high-rise condominiums. Cities cease to be actual places and become, rather, global spaces. They are landscapes of glistening hotels, elevated highways, endless sprawl and mass consumption. They juxtapose ‘global’ office districts with desperate slums, hypermarket consumerism with age-old agriculture. And yes, it is in these cities that luxury sedans drive over the homeless (or migrant workers on bikes, if you are writing about Asia).
I can understand the temptation of assuming that the world is increasing witnessing a single, ‘global’ urban form. Most cities over a certain size are experiencing similar problems: runaway sprawl, horrendous traffic congestion, drastic wealth gaps and serious environmental quality issues. The ‘haves’, used to having their way (no pun intended), are busily constructing their glistening world above and beyond the heads of the ‘have nots’, with the latter left to rot in crumbling housing projects, megaslums or a rapidly deteriorating rural environment. So, if cities the world over are experiencing similar problems, it must mean they are similar, right?
Well no, not really. In fact, these problems stem more often than not from a belief in the similarity of cities rather than any actual similarity in their form, function or organization. If, in terms of urban development, one believes in a ‘one size fits all’ approach, then the tendency will be to apply the same solution to perceived similar situations. This is the “if it works in New York, it works in Shanghai” approach. This is the world of fact-finding missions, airport-hopping consultants and ‘best practices’, in which ‘what worked over there must be done over here’. Whether your traffic problem is in Istanbul, Beijing or Toronto, well it’s nothing a little ‘modern’ urban transportation modelling can’t handle. The problem with all this, of course, is that what excels in one particular, and very specific, context may well fail dismally in another. Cities are cities, yes, but they are also each a unique product of their particular social, cultural and historical circumstances. There is no law that says what works in one place most work in another. And given huge, and persisting, diversity in the cultural sphere, this scepticism of the universal becomes all the more vital.
If we do not get beyond this idea that cities are increasingly the same, I fear we will do nothing but make them worse places to live for their inhabitants. I guess, as humans, we have a tendency to get caught up on superficial appearances, and an inability to move beyond these is ultimately what drives the ‘globalization’ rhetoric. So we see tall buildings, we see highways, we see malls, and we think: these places are the same. But digging just a tiny bit deeper, one finds that the dynamics driving these places could not be more different. Thus, public transportation initiatives in one particular city might work not because they are objectively ‘good’, but rather because they are particularly suited to that city’s socio-cultural environment. Similarly, these same solutions might fail dismally in another city where public transportation is frowned upon as being ‘for the peasants’. Although North American cities have mostly managed (so far) to function as car dependent entities, any sane individual would tell you this is just not an option in mainland China, where even minuscule car ownership rates means more vehicles on the sidewalks than pedestrians. In the end, I guess, we have to remember that difference still matters. Shanghai is not New York, and New York is certainly not London nor is it Lagos. They might all be ‘big’ and ‘important’, yes, but why they have developed and, more importantly, how they have developed could not be more different. And the unique path each has taken will necessarily affect the method through which problems are tackled and solved.
We have a tendency, here in the good old ‘West’, to see homogeneity where there is none, to find comfort in an erroneous belief that the ‘Other’ is becoming more like us, and thus less threatening. We like to see globalization, Westernization and modernization in situations where perhaps these are not the best explanations for what’s going on. Shanghai, for example, is often trumpeted as China’s New York, evidence that the Middle Kingdom is embracing ‘Western’ market capitalism, brash consumerism and tall shiny things. However, look beyond the glossy exterior (which, unfortunately, most people don’t), and the dynamics driving the development of China’s biggest city could not be more different from the Big Apple. Numerous times in the past few years, I have read that Pudong is China’s ‘Manhattan’. That’s strange, I guess I missed the part where the East Village was an explicitly planned, government-driven mega-project. Besides the height of certain buildings, I sure don’t see much in common.
Manhattan
Pudong, China’s ‘Manhattan’
Update: As Pketh has rightly pointed out in the comments section, I certainly could have taken a picture in Shanghai that looks very similar to the New York scene. My point, however, was to show that Pudong, which is regularly called China’s ‘Manhattan’, is nothing like Manhattan at all. I’ve changed the photo captions to make that comparison more explicit.