Skylines You’ve Never Seen

Having gone through the greatest economic expansion in human history, Chinese cities have expressed that transition in their skylines – an undisguised statement to the West that ‘we can do it bigger and better.’ ‘Better’ is subjective, ‘bigger’ not so much.

Quora contributor Martin Andrews assembled contemporary photos of China’s Tier 1 cities in his answer to the inquiry: “What are Chinese cities like compared to western cities?” He begins with shots of Vancouver as an example of what impresses him about western cities, and then notes: “Vancouver has a metro population of 2.4 million and there are 64 Chinese cities with a population greater than one million that really puts things into perspective.”

Here are just a few of the skylines that, I expect, most of us will find totally unfamiliar.

Chongging:

Chengdu:

Dongguan:

Guangzhou:

Hangzhou:

Nangjing:

Shenyang:

Shenzhen:

Suzhou:

Tianjin:

Martin also lists Key observations about Chinese cities:

Heavy emphasis on greenery, urban planning is centred around greenery
Roads typically 2–3 lanes wide made with high quality
Poorer cities have a lot of apartments which are made poorly to house migrants as quickly as possible, these are eventually demolished over time
Constant renovation of buildings, roads and everything
Most have a Pudong like area, potential high density CBD’s
Perfect landscaping with perfect geometry
Competing to have the tallest building, an easy method to gain world recognition
Potentially merge with each other
All technology oriented cities grow faster
Emphasis on public transport
Not afraid to try new technology
Tier 3 cities all have very similar characteristics, most of the tier 2 cities have different characteristics and “feel” to them and all the tier 1 cities have different characteristics and “feel” to them, the tier 1 cities are pretty unique
As the income level rises the infrastructure gets better