Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Its like the epcot center, or something.

Louisa Lim is doing a week long series on NPR about the construction boom in Shanghai, including a weird plan to create 9 satellite towns housing 500,000 people each designed in the style of a different country (6 European styles, 2 Chinese styles, and one Canadian). It sounds a lot like the fake villages at the EPCOT center, except that people are actually supposed to live there.

Lim's most recent broadcast ended with some serious, and probably needed editorializing: "And with homes priced out of the market for many, Shanghai's plans for its satellite towns are placing gimmicky foreign settlements above the real needs of its own people."

4 comments:

Thomas said...

In Disney's original conception, people were supposed to actually live in EPCOT.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_Prototype_Community_of_Tomorrow_%28concept%29

Thomas said...

Oh, see also Waltopia.

Anonymous said...

I wonder what the "Canadian-style" town is going to look like. Montreal 1968, vinyl siding, or what?

The Modesto Kid said...

I am way late and don't think anybody is going to see this comment (Merry Holidays everybody!), but I can't believe you would post about this without referencing Celebration, FL.