Geoscience Reference
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participating organizations and nations (almost two hundred) and the “fi rst
to take place in a developing country.”
3
h e other major related storyline about the World Expo was about Shang-
hai, eager to paint itself as China's shining beacon to the world. Shanghai
exemplifi ed China's aspirations to leap out of its developing country status,
from the fi rst three decades of Communist rule until the 1980s. Shanghai is,
and sees itself as, one of the leading cities in the world, equal to Hong Kong
and Tokyo in Asia, and New York, Paris, and London in the West. One (non-
o' cial) expo guidebook suggests that the World Expo “is Shanghai ampli-
fi ed, distilled, and celebrated, in a festival of cosmopolitan exhibition-
ism. . . . Shanghai's global signifi cance has nourished a self-absorption that
would be insuff erable, were it not that the city harbors the entire world
within itself, its limitless self-regard entirely ameliorated by an equally
unlimited openness. For Shanghai, hosting the world is a mission so natural
it almost seems an
original destiny.
”
4
Since the inception of world expos, the relationship between city and
nation has always been a complicated dance. h is same account reads: “Cit-
ies accommodate Expos, signifi cantly defi ne them, participate in their glo-
ries, and absorb some . . . fraction of their impact. . . . [T]he Expo has been
energized by creative tensions between the principal levels of large-scale
social organization, provoking a prolonged public meditation upon relations
between the individual, the city, the nation, and the world.”
5
Since 1992,
Shanghai has attracted some $120 billion in foreign direct investment. But,
despite the red-hot economic climate in Shanghai, urban infrastructure and
other living conditions have been relatively neglected. According to Daniel
Vasella, the head of the International Business Leaders Advisory Council for
the mayor of Shanghai and chairman of the global pharmaceutical fi rm
Novartis, quality of life concerns matter to the large global workforce and
expatriate community in Shanghai. He said, “h
e government is now more
aware of quality-of-life issues. . . . h
ey realize that if you can't deliver
