China is in the midst of the fastest and most intense process of urbanization the world has ever known, and Shanghai -- its biggest, richest and most cosmopolitan city00 is positioned for acceleration into the twenty-first century.
Yet, in its embrace of a hopeful -- even exultant -- futurism, Shanghai recalls the older and much criticized project of imagining, planning and building the modern metropolis. Today, among Westerners, at least, the very idea of the futuristic city -- with its multilayered skyways, domestic robots and flying cars -- seems doomed to the realm of nostalgia, the...