fuckyeahsouthasia:

The urban crisis we face today is serious, and it is promoting social and class inequity, ecological damage and environmental degradation, crime and conflict, the displacement of entire communities, the loss of multi-class public space, and the over-consumption of resources. The World Class City concept is, to a great extent, responsible for this damage. Also, its concepts have now taken root in both academia and bureaucracy, and so our future planners will continue to promote these concepts.

Renowned Pakistani architect, activist, and urban planner, Arif Hasan speaks on the ‘World-Class City’ concept, and its repercussions on urban planning for Asian cities.

yes, this is why some parts of shanghai feel like an awful rich clean zone, like extreme space dysphoria, like whose needs are being met with this zoning, oh yeah, no one’s, so much money exchanged hands before this mall-that’s-so-expensive-it-basically-functions-as-a-museum-of-designer-goods even got built, built so recently that I can still feel the ghosts of the displaced Shanghaiese, pressured to move so the government could have its world class city.