Shanghai: Unleashing creative potential

Abstract

In its pre-Communist heyday, Shanghai was an astute marketer that captured the hearts and minds of the great artists, writers and entrepreneurs of the times, people like Charlie Chaplin, Aldous Huxley and Noel Coward. Shanghai was the greatest city in Asia — alive, colourful, intoxicating — an archetype of modernity. During the last 20 years or so, in efforts to re-establish itself as world-class, a massive programme of urban regeneration has got underway. Skyscrapers and glitzy towers have sprung up across the skyline at breakneck speed creating a formidable ‘outer force’. But great cities are more than physical infrastructure. A city sparkles not through its metal joists and marble casings, but when its own arts and culture are allowed to shine through, the embodiments of the imagination of its people. In pre-Communist, colonial days, Shanghai's own indigenous culture flourished. The city was a beacon that drew talent from every corner of the world. This paper traces the development of Shanghai from its beginnings in the 11th century as a tiny fishing village situated on the west bank of the Huangpu River to the shimmering riot of towers and glass that is the city today, and argues that its melting pot past has left a legacy on the city and its people: a hunger to absorb advancements from abroad. Today, this permeability is sapping the city's own creativity: its unique culture and traditions are sinking under external influences. Shanghai must begin the task of nourishing this inner force — the imagination of its people. The author looks at what can be done to set in place the conditions to unleash the innate creativity of the people of Shanghai.