Geoscience Reference
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not appeared to succeed as a primary residence for many, although they
have been successfully sold. In other words, the mobilization of nature in
selling real estate has done at least part of its job, to create the natural capi-
tal, as in Dongtan, to justify the higher real estate prices in areas long
deemed marginal to the central city.
maximum skyline, minimalized nature
Green and clean socialist living city
Technologically hygienic city
the healthy future garden-salad city.
An ordered oasis of high-tech corporations, Siliconed Valleys, and global
investment zones.
A massive forestation and green infrastructure planning strategy,
corporate parks, urban forests, fl owering roadside urban therapy.
A private Eden of commodifi ed residential real estate and lush greenery,
intelligent homes, luxury, and class-diff erentiated scenery.
Pudong—one of China's fi rst garden cities—planted in Shanghai's Tenth Five
Year Plan
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One way to think about the meaning of h ames Town is that it is a totally
normal example of shoddy construction in China. Although a building may
look good, it falls apart or, in one particularly dramatic case, down. In June
2009, a thirteen-story new development in Shanghai fell down, killing one
worker. Investigations pointed to the low-quality pilings used, and the poor
placement of the dirt from the garage excavation next to a riverbank, which
led to water seeping onto the site.
34
For me, h ames Town's decaying buildings and the sideways Shanghai
skyscraper remind me of Albert Speer Sr., not least because his son, Albert
Speer Jr., is the architect of An Ting (German Town). In 1934, Speer Sr. proposed
“A h eory of Ruin Value,” which suggested that even in an empire's decline (as
in imperial Rome), decayed architectural relics remain monumental and
