Geoscience Reference
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topic argues, is in the third section, “Looking for an Eco-city.” h is section
contains a number of graphs and computer-generated renderings of Dong-
tan's development.
h is section of the topic reads a lot like a genre I call high-tech eco-geek.
Environmentalists have long sought to improve environmental conditions
through technology. But where the 1960s U.S. version coming out of the
counterculture and alternative communities focused on low-tech solutions
(like building your own windmill) in Stewart Brand's
Whole Earth Catalog,
this new iteration depends on the complexity that only computer systems
and technical expertise can render. Although technology is often the source
of environmental problems, this discourse focuses on the virtues of high-
tech solutions to environmental crisis aimed precisely at generating these
visceral responses:
I didn't know we could do that! h at'd be cool!
It's like the
Jetsons turbocharged in the face of climate change.
From the pragmatic and scientifi c,
Shanghai Dongtan: An Eco-City
moves
into what reads like a real estate investment brochure, with images of
residents, almost all of them whom are white, exercising with a beautiful
waterscape as the aesthetic backdrop. h e “we” and “I” here taking this
“Imaginary Journey” are visibly white and, more often than not, blond.
Here, the text reads, “in 2020, we boarded a pleasure boat that brought us
from downtown Shanghai to the Nangang Port of Dongtan, which was the
starting point where the city began to grow. . . . [O]n the wide embankment
embracing the port on both sides, I saw guesthouses, hotels, restaurants and
stores scattered here and there with people under wide parasols sipping
their coff ee.”
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h e target market for Dongtan eco-city is not the actual transnational
fi nancial elites who come to Shanghai to work and play. According to Wood,
Arup's goal for Dongtan is “a Chinese City for the Chinese.” Despite this lan-
guage, the images represented are not primarily of Chinese residents. Trans-
national elites (imagined as white) signify a politics and set of aspirations.
