Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
the Chongming Island eco-developments, ecological suburbanization, and
what occurred at the 2010 World Expo within broad webs of meaning,
desire, ideology, and investment.
h e “why now?” question may seem fairly obvious: international and
national awareness of global climate change and environmental destruction
such as species extinction, water shortages, and air pollution as a result of
the growth of manufacturing in China is increasing. But the answer to the
“how?” question is not so obvious. What is the “form” that the solution of
the real and perceived crisis of Chinese pollution takes? In China more gen-
erally, and Shanghai in particular, the answer is manipulations of the built
environment, through eco-city building, and “high-tech solutions” that
promise both environmental benefi ts and economic growth. h is green cap-
italist approach, cloaked in technocratic and technological solutions, is not
unique to China,
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but it is onto China that the American desire for, and
revulsion against, the authoritarian structures needed for such ecological
development are projected.
In other words, desire
always
animates ecological development. But
whose desire, and to what end, is a mélange of fantasies, money, and dirty
politics, as much as it is about shiny, clean, fantastically green “eco-cities”
for the future. Ecological development in Shanghai is as much infl uenced by
U.S. ambivalence about Chinese manufacturing as it is by local, regional,
and national politics. It is shaped by global design, architecture, and engi-
neering discourse and practice, as well as by the actual eco-systems that
surround the complex and quickly changing urban landscape that is the
Shanghai megaregion. h e next two chapters explore the Dongtan eco-city
project more closely, as well as the island context of Chongming within the
broader regional context of Shanghai.
