Three Gorges Dam - Pushing the Limits: New Adventures in Engineering - page 143

Zigui is among the first of the new towns to be occupied, with an initial population of approxim-
ately thirty thousand and the prospect of perhaps doubling before too long. At the municipal build-
ing, we met the chief planner, who assembled us around a model that showed the planned town to
be laid out beside the completed reservoir, with a gently sloping hill dividing the town into distinct
sections. While residential parts appeared to include plenty of green space, most of the apartments
are located in clusters of seven-story buildings, reminiscent of “the projects” in large American cit-
ies. Some of the apartments no doubt command spectacular views, but since the buildings do not
have elevators the top floors are less desirable than the middle floors. When asked, our guide ex-
plained that apartment buildings were assigned to groups of workers associated with a factory team.
Their manager was responsible for allocating the individual apartments within the building.
Even with this lack of control over their choice of housing, young Chinese apparently believe
that relocation was an opportunity for them to advance their standard of living. For those young
people from old towns with few modern amenities and with cramped quarters, the prospect of more
bedrooms, bathrooms, and modern appliances made the disruption of their lives worth it. For the
older generations, who have lived their entire lives in familiar surroundings, the prospect of moving
as many as fifty kilometers away, even if into a large, modern apartment, was not so appealing. It
seemed clear to many of us that the tensions that were likely to be created between the generations
in this society, where the old have for so long been revered, may create unanticipated problems for
relocation efforts and for China.
Shortly after returning to Sandouping, we boarded the Snow Mountain for our trip up the Yangtze.
The riverboat was not large by cruise-ship standards, but it appeared to be trying to emulate them
in its amenities: beauty salon, massage parlor, bar, and show stage. As soon as the Snow Mountain
left the dock and sailed to the middle of the river, we gathered on the forward deck to admire the
Xiling Bridge, which loomed ahead of us like a ceremonial gate. We now could see clearly that the
nine-hundred-meter-span suspension bridge has side spans that are supported from beneath on the
riverbank. This obviates the need for the suspension cables to support the side spans, and so the taut
cables above them have a rigidly straight profile that directs the eye to the granite into which they
are anchored directly. The absence of massive concrete anchorages emphasizes the sleekness of the
bridge. We looked up at the underside of the deck as we passed beneath the bridge, confirming that
the structure is a box girder.
The Xiling Bridge had so captured our attention that it was only after we had passed under it that
we realized what a spectacular view of the Three Gorges construction site lay before us. From our
midriver vantage point, we got a much better appreciation of the dam's enormous reach. Like those
along the skyline of a great city experiencing a building boom—a common case in cities throughout
China—the tower cranes dominated the top of the view. From our downriver approach, we could
see the circular falsework in place for forming the great penstocks that would carry water from the
reservoir to the turbines at the bottom of the dam. As the Snow Mountain cruised upriver toward
the diversion channel to the left of the rising concrete megalith, we got an appreciation for the force
of the river. Confined to a channel barely one third the width of its natural course, the river rushed
past us with a great ferocity. (What would it be like during flood season?) As the riverboat labored
against the current, we looked up at the cross section of the dam as if at a skyscraper. A worker
framed by one of the inspection tunnels gave a sense of scale to the structure. No matter from what