Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
green industry base, tourist and recreation base, and the “model ecological
place” in the twenty-fi rst century.
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In 2003, it was o' cially declared an
“ecological island” by the Shanghai government, which meant that devel-
opment activities that confl icted with the protection of the environment
were prohibited.
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h e idea that Chongming is a key focal point of Shanghai's urban and
economic development is not new. But the specifi c terms of this development
discourse have changed over time. In the 1980s, Shanghai chose Pudong over
Chongming Island as the site of the city's new center for global fi nance and
trade. Pudong, now the site of Shanghai's iconic skyscrapers, was at the time
a poor farming region like Chongming. But the intensive development and
hypermodernization of Pudong in the 1980s and 1990s serves as both a model
and a warning for Chongming's contemporary development.
In other words, Shanghai's policy focus and economic investment for
Chongming promises great change. But the
form
of that change is what is
currently under debate. As the next chapter shows, Shanghai is explicitly
rejecting the high-rise Pudong model of global fi nance for Chongming by
extolling the unique ecological and natural features of the island as its chief
argument for social and ecological development.
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At the same time, the
comparisons and competition between Pudong and Chongming remain, to
a far lesser degree, in the multiyear drama and intense speculation around
which area would be the site for mainland China's fi rst Disneyland. Pudong
was named as the site of the future Disneyland in 2009, but Chongming did
get a compensatory tourist attraction, a miniature version of Michael Jack-
son's Neverland ranch, which opened in 2010. According to one of the Chi-
nese investors who reproduced Neverland at a 1:17 scale, “By building a
Neverland here in China, we want to pay tribute to [Michael Jackson] and at
the same time off er the Chinese people an outlet for expressing their love
towards him.” Shanghai Neverland will have “Chinese characteristics to
have it blend in with the local environment.”
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