Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER
2
Population
Field Note
Basic Infrastructure
120E
110E
130E
RUSSIA
MONG.
40N
N. KOREA
JAPAN
S. KOREA
CHINA
East
China
Sea
30N
Shanghai
PACIFIC
OCEAN
VIET.
20N
PHILIPPINES
Figure 2.1
Shanghai, China.
© Erin H. Fouberg.
The words wafted in the air as my colleague and I took a minute to process them.
We were in Shanghai, China, visiting with a Chinese student who had spent a
semester at our small college in a town of 26,000 in rural South Dakota. My col-
league had asked the student what he missed most about our small town of
Aberdeen. He replied without hesitating, “Basic infrastructure.”
I thought about brand-new subway lines in Shanghai and Beijing, new airports
throughout China, and high-speed trains being built to connect China's cities. I
visualized the miles of gleaming new concrete we had driven on that afternoon on
the ring highway on the outskirts of Shanghai (Fig. 2.1) and the empty fi elds where
houses or other buildings had been leveled to make room for new high-density
housing, more concrete, and more infrastructure. Shanghai's metro system only
36
Search WWH ::




Custom Search