Cases of Good Urban Management

    The “urban best practice area” will be a highlight of the 2010 Shanghai World Expo.

    According to convention, the participants of the World Expo should be countries or international organizations. A city does not qualify as a participant. But since the theme of this expo is “the city,” an “urban best practice area” has been established. Zhu Yonglei said strictly speaking, the participants in the area are not cities, but exemplary cases of urban management.

    At present, 15 buildings and more than 40 exhibit cases have been selected from 108 entries recommended by 80 cities around the world. All these cases have shown good methods of city management, including livable cities, sustainable urbanization, protection and utilization of history, and technological innovation in built environments.

    The renovation of Tak Seng On Pawnshop in Macao has been selected as an urban best practice. In 2004 this project won a UNESCO Asia Pacific Heritage Award. Tak Seng On was built in 1917, and was the largest pawnshop in Macao, but by 1990 it was derelict. In 2001 the Macao SAR government invested MOP $1.4 million in its renovation and preservation, and entrusted an entrepreneur to operate it. After renovation, Tak Seng On opened to the general public as a pawnshop museum and cultural venue.

Relocation of Local Inhabitants

    The Shanghai World Expo site includes the fenced area (admission ticket area) and land for support facilities. The total expo site covers 5.28 square kilometers on the banks of the Huangpu River. The site required relocating 18,000 households, most of them staff of Jiangnan Shipyard and Shanghai No. 3 Iron and Steel Plant. “The relocated 18,000 households are the first to benefit from the Shanghai World Expo concept: ‘Better City, Better Life’,” states Zhu Yonglei.

    Jiangnan Shipyard, known as the “cradle of China’s modern industry,” was established in 1865 as the Kiangnan Arsenal. The total floor space of the shipyard was 440,000 square meters, making up 47 percent of the west section of the World Expo site. Shanghai No. 3 Iron and Steel Plant (Baosteel Group’s Shanghai Pudong Iron and Steel Co., Ltd.) is also a time-honored enterprise. It was established in 1913, the earliest iron and steel plant in China, and covered 2.1 million square meters. Zhu Yonglei says, “When the two enterprises were established, they were in suburban areas. With the expansion of Shanghai, they have become core urban areas, and affected the urban environment. The two enterprises have found new opportunities for development through relocation.”

    Jiangnan Shipyard moved to Changxing Island at the estuary of the Yangtze River, and its current size is five times the original area, making it China’s largest, most advanced and modern shipyard, with an annual 4.5-million-ton shipbuilding capacity, ranking second in the world. Shanghai No. 3 Iron and Steel Plant was relocated to Luojing, where it has introduced the world’s latest corex smelting reduction ironmaking technology, which is almost pollution-free.

    The 18,000 relocated households used to live in houses built in the 1930s, many with no sanitation facilities. The relocated inhabitants, after receiving compensation, can either buy houses in other areas or houses in the two “World Expo Residential Areas” especially built for them. Most households chose to buy houses in these two areas, since the housing prices are RMB 1,000 lower than those in the similar sections of the city. Zhu Yonglei says, “To most relocated inhabitants, the World Expo has provided an opportunity to improve their housing conditions.”

    More than 20 households, however, are not satisfied about this relocation project. Some of them are families with multiple sons and daughters. They hoped that after relocation every family could have independent apartments, and the local government could help solve this problem. Since their original living areas were limited, it is difficult to solve this problem. Some inhabitants of Shanghai No. 3 Iron and Steel Plant who lived in collective dormitories have been relocated to collective dormitories of the same size, and they hope to obtain property rights over the new dormitories. “But under the current law, this problem cannot be solved,” explains Zhu Yonglei.