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For size of skyline Shanghai trumps the lot, including the current record holder, Hong Kong. It's notoriously undercounted in the league tables for this kind of thing, even by its city office, which is increasingly obvious to anyone who flies in there. The majority of it's 25 million inhabitants live in tall buildings, although below is carpeted the world's largest 'Old Town', if you look beneath the skyscrapers, of buildings over >85 years.
Bear in mind this is just a fraction of the SH skyline - the entire Pudong half, the remainder of Puxi and the highrise surburbs, are all missed out. The blanket of russet roofed old buildings makes the city appear brown from the air (for scale the tv tower on the river bend is 1535 ft tall, or nearly 300ft taller than the Empire State Building. Also try and spot the stadium):
By 2007 at the height of the construction frenzy it was building more highrise space in a year than Manhattan's entire office supply, to house up to 3000 newcomers a day.
It has 5-6 designated Old Towns, 3 of them Chinese, 1 from the colonial era, and 2 proto-Chinese-Western; although most of the centre can be considered 'old' if it was anywhere other than Asia/ Europe. The Communists kept the vast city of 16 million in aspic right until the 1990s due to it's dangerous tendency for rebellion (both capitalist and communist) - but today much is now threatened by the neverending boom, and hundreds of streets already lost.
Within a few years Shanghai will reach Suzhou and physically, contiguously merge into the world's largest city, 40 million+. The fate of the older buildings remains very uncertain, as will the whole shikumen tradition.
In short if Shanghai loses it's history, it will lose so much more. It's pointless having all the skyscrapers and big city status if there's nothing unique about that in the future.
I don't know if it can be said it has the largest old town, as it seems to me that the various old towns all form different cores and are separated between each other, not sure if there's a continuity between them.
Anyway, it's sad that so much traditional architecture is being destroyed to make space for soulless glass boxes, i find it appalling how China isn't preserving his historical heritage, preferring instead to waste money on European copycat cities, why is there such an obsession with European culture? There really shouldn't be especially from a culture as advanced and sophisticated as Chinese one.
Shanghai has a smaller skyline than both NYC and HK. Both NYC and HK have more highrises (300 ft.+), more skyscrapers (500 ft.+) and more supertalls (1,000 ft.+) than Shanghai.
And Shanghai has almost no historic fabric. I don't know where you came up with that. Somewhere like Rome, Istanbul or Paris probably have the most historic fabric on earth.
I don't know if it can be said it has the largest old town, as it seems to me that the various old towns all form different cores and are separated between each other, not sure if there's a continuity between them.
Anyway, it's sad that so much traditional architecture is being destroyed to make space for soulless glass boxes, i find it appalling how China isn't preserving his historical heritage, preferring instead to waste money on European copycat cities, why is there such an obsession with European culture? There really shouldn't be especially from a culture as advanced and sophisticated as Chinese one.
Yep, those are developer's tastes in the free market. There are about a zillion Chinese style counterparts too - every Chinese city now has an Ye Olde China district of a regenerated, rebuilt (or entirely new) Ming/ Qing dynasty quarter. Also the tacky suburban affairs you see in different European styles also manifest themselves in Han Chinese, Tibetan and Xinjiang styles too. In the south they also do a nice sideline in Thai architecture, notably Xishuangbanna or the city of Kunming.
Beware they can be just as tacky and nouveau riches. In Beijing they're called 'hat buildings', because theyre normal modern buildings, but with a Chinese roof as embellishment:
Shanghai has a smaller skyline than both NYC and HK. Both NYC and HK have more highrises (300 ft.+), more skyscrapers (500 ft.+) and more supertalls (1,000 ft.+) than Shanghai.
And Shanghai has almost no historic fabric. I don't know where you came up with that. Somewhere like Rome, Istanbul or Paris probably have the most historic fabric on earth.
Shanghai has lots of history, but not old history (eg 200 years +, outside the 4 Chinese 'Old City's'); go to neighbouring Nanjing for that, which was the former Imperial Capital. The tens of thousands of buildings SH has are about 85 years old, which are consiidered old in say, North America, but not in China (and hence why they easily face destruction). It also claims the most amount of art deco in one place.
Like I said the highrise buildings are woefully undercounted. And it all depends on where your cut off points are. For example SH is under HK (which officially tallies up as 40% more highrise than NYC) on number of 150m buildings, but completely owns the place over 100m buildings (which is what I'm talking about mostly - the density of highrises multiple times that of HK or NYC). It may lose out over 2-300m, but is the global leader on the 400m mark. In short SH is less highrise in terms of skyscrapers over 150m than HK, but it in terms of highrises cumulatively (over 100m) it absolutely cleans the board, and earns the highest score, if it were counted.
Hongkong has 6,594 buildings ranging from 12 to 29 floors: Hong Kong | Buildings | EMPORIS Shanghai has 18,966 buildings ranging from 11 to 29 floors
Also just look at the pictures to the same scale (this shows best how the 100m+ highrises are undercounted). HK in the first pic is meant to be the global leader by 40%, and Shanghai much lower in the league. Also bear in mind that's a fraction of the whole Shanghai skyline. (For NYC, the built up area is almost exactly the same size as Manhattan, 87 sq miles)
Shanghai has lots of history, but not old history (eg 200 years +, outside the Old City). The buildings are about 85 years old, which isn't considered old in China. It also claims the most amount of art deco in one place.
Like I said the highrise buildings are woefully undercounted. And it all depends on where your cut off points are. For example SH is under HK (which officially tallies up as 40% more highrise than NYC) on numebr of 150m buildings, but completely owns the place over 100m buildings (which is what I'm talking about mostly - the density of highrises multiple times that of HK or NYC). It may lose out over 200m mark but wins out on the 250m mark. It loses out on the 300m mark, but is the global leader on the 400m mark.
Hongkong has 6,594 buildings ranging from 12 to 29 floors: Hong Kong | Buildings | EMPORIS Shanghai has 18,966 buildings ranging from 11 to 29 floors
Also just look at the pictures to the same scale (this shows best how the 100m+ highrises are undercounted). HK in the first pic is meant to be the global leader by 40%, and Shanghai much lower in the league. Also bear in mind that's a fraction of the whole Shanghai skyline.
Nice strategic shot of Hong Kong that uses the mountain to hide most of its skyline.
Also, why are you using a range one floor lower to count Shanghai? Do they have thousands of buildings that are 11 floors?
Look again at the pics, the mountains don't hide most of the skyline. That's Hong Kong island (Victoria), Kowloon, and the New Territory satellite towns in the distance. beyond that are the highrises of China (Shenzhen) in the haze. They correlate with the pic in showing the entirety of the built up areas.
Everything in the south in this satellite pic is HK, the large urban areas to the north are Chinese Shenzhen:
Yep, in terms of highrises Sao Paulo would be the big contender. However it's mostly considered out of the running due to it's complete lack of skyscrapers over the lowest threshold even (150m), -due to the airport.
Last edited by Rozenn; 03-06-2015 at 01:26 PM..
Reason: Language
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