A Window into the Future

The urban-themed exhibits at Expo 2010 in Shanghai show clear recognition of the opportunities that exist to help turn around climate change through innovations in urban development.

While development in the United States may be stalled, Expo 2010 gives China an exceptional moment to shine. Expo 2010 constitutes yet another instance of China’s emerging global economic power and the magnitude of the historic urbanization that has taken place there over more than two decades. It requires more than a knowledge of statistics to appreciate China’s role in the future of development practice—and Expo 2010 provides a window into that future.

Expo 2010 is a product of what used to be called the World’s Fair. In 1893, the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago turned out to be a historic design showcase by the likes of Daniel Burnham and Frederick Law Olmsted. Today, the Bureau International des Expositions governing body in Paris oversees two categories of events: the less frequent worldwide events, and the more frequent, relatively small and more specialized events. The primary thrust of the worldwide events is national image building or country branding. While participation in Expo 2010 was not a priority for U.S. political leaders from the outset, a public/private partnership and corporate sponsorships emerged as the chief means to fund the U.S. pavilion.

Meanwhile, China has already used the international stage to great effect by opening the 21st century with a pair of shining attractions: the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing and now Expo 2010 in Shanghai. Through these investments, China is sponsoring a view of possible futures not all that differently from how the future was promoted in 1893.

Expo 2010 is the largest world exposition in history, with 189 countries and 50 international organizations represented and some 70 million people expected to attend its 20,000 events over six months ending October 31. Taking place at a single-purpose city-within-a-city composed of national, corporate, and themed pavilions along a two-mile (3.2-km) stretch of the Huangpu River in Shanghai, Expo 2010 showcases ideas for urban sustainability, including ecofriendly applications and green technologies, and explores urbanization and environmental challenges in the past, present, and future. Whatever uses the Expo site and pavilions are put to later, the large amount of infrastructure and construction investment, from subways to sidewalks, will yield symbolic and intangible value as worldwide attention is focused on China’s economic growth and rapid urbanization.

As of 2008, it is estimated that over half the world’s population lives in cities, and that share likely will increase for some time, given that the motivation for migration to cities most often is the pursuit of employment opportunities by young people. The consequences of this historic migration are most evident in less-developed countries, and perhaps most easily understood through the presence of vast shantytowns that surround their large cities. China has largely built its way out of this problem, leaving the question how long it can continue to do so.

As their economic power grows, people in the developing world increase their consumption of goods, worsening fears of increased emission of the greenhouse gases responsible for global warming, not only from their purchase and use of automobiles, but also from energy production.

The speed and magnitude of China’s urbanization provide the clearest instance yet of how a country can transform itself from a rural to an urban society. With a population of over 1.3 billion, four times that of the United States, China seems likely to surpass the United States as the world’s largest economy within two decades.

Meanwhile, battered development projects, market uncertainty, and reluctant lenders continue to stall U.S. dealmakers, despite their expressed desire to employ what capital and professional expertise are available. The international situation varies from country to country, with some showing growth and others still thwarted by financial upheaval. Development professionals want to throttle up and again help pull the economy out of recession, but the magnitude of the drop in construction employment worldwide suggests that may not happen for a while. Nonetheless, a number of U.S. cities are still seeing increases in population. Are U.S. issues of urbanization very different from those being faced by other countries?

The answer appears to be yes, in part. Unlike the situation in the United States and Europe, there are few signs of hand-wringing about financial markets at Expo 2010, where one finds thousands of hot, sweaty people waiting hours to get into the pavilions that most interest them. They seem to have little concern for sprawling development patterns leading to global warming and an obesity epidemic.

People attending Expo 2010 will not find new land deals or fresh borrowing techniques. Instead, Expo 2010 was created for the customers of development professionals. That sweaty person, standing in that unthinkably long line, is the real target of Expo 2010. As the global population climbs toward 7 billion, with most of the increase coming from developing countries, throngs of people in some of the world’s poorest countries are being asked for their response to global warming while those living in prosperity seem all but unwilling to scale back what they see as their right to generate greenhouse gases at the world’s highest levels per capita. And that may be one of the best reasons to attend Expo 2010. To the credit of organizers, there is clear recognition in the content of the urban-themed exhibits of the opportunities to help turn around climate change through innovations in urban development (see, “Expo 2010: Theme Pavilions”).

Many workers in China have seen their standard of living rise in just a few years. A little over a decade ago, dirt roads were still fairly common in China’s big cities. Today’s visitors to China’s megacities arrive on world-class mass transit; the highways from the international airport to Expo 2010 are smooth and well lit.

Though, in addition to being the largest world’s fair to date, Expo 2010 may also be part theme park, visitors should not expect the normal kind of take-home value. Instead, they can take home the experience of being part of a global urban future, and start thinking now about what they are going to contribute to make that future happen.