Lucy Tobin: London has a soul that the Chinese can never buy

London has, for centuries, preserved its identity while keeping up with every city rival in its long history
A giant panda cub (left) and its mother play by a pond as they take a bath at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in Chengdu, Sichuan. REUTERS/China Daily
27 September 2013
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Megalopolis: that’s the phrase the Chinese use to describe one of their unimaginably huge conurbations.

Unimaginable, that is, until they built a half-tennis-court-sized scale model of the place. Mini Chengdu fills a whole room, complete with thousands of blinking neon lights for every weeny skyscraper, and individually sculpted trees, more numerable in model than in reality.

I saw the plans this week while working in the south-central Chinese city, which has grown — in decades — from farmland to a place that would fit into any identi-city guidelines. There’s Gap, H&M, Gucci, glassy skyscrapers, and one helluva lot of people, mostly simultaneously honking their horns.

“What happened to the farmers?” we asked the beaming town planners after they’d shown off their “megalopolis” with a whizzier-than-Pixar CGI film. “First, they were upset,” was the response. “Then, they became citizens!”

It’s a reaction that David Cameron probably shouldn’t expect of HS2’s band of not-in-my-back-yarders.

But issues such as HS2 sprung to mind a lot in a few days in China. Because for every decision we Londoners carefully ponder, such as HS2’s destructive but speedy train line, Heathrow expansion, and even whether 42 Average Street should be allowed a loft conversion, we are reminded that China waits for no one.

By the time our runway debate stumbles into its next decade, resolution still as likely as the birth of a polka dot panda, Chengdu, home of the giant panda, will have a new four-runway hub (just outside the city; warn the farmers), as will other emerging Asian cities. More surging economic growth will follow, we are told; the UK will be bumped further down the international league table.

Visiting China, though, gave me reason to ponder our constant peering-over-the-shoulder at this powerhouse. It’s a place with a love of superlatives: biggest, fastest, richest, greatest, even the spiciest (after an incident involving innocuous-looking noodles, my throat is on high alert).

In Chengdu I visited the world’s biggest building, the New Century Global Center. Inside it was Westfield, Ally Pally ice rink, Aqua Splash and the Olympic village combined. But staff outnumbered the few visitors by at least 10 to one. What use is a leisure centre if few can afford its wares?

Chengdu left me concluding that bigger isn’t always better. Cheetah-fast development has seen history, and nature, bulldozed for an “efficient” transport system.

So to get to the world’s biggest building, I had to cross what may be the world’s biggest zebra crossing. It felt like I’d have to beat the 100-metre sprint record to get to the other side in my allotted few seconds, while cars went straight at me. I only arrived on the other side after using an old man as a traffic-defending shield.

A great city can’t be built on ambition alone. London may be squashy and creaking, and its future development hostage to a cacophony of voices and interest groups, but at least British citizens have a voice.

Meanwhile, London has, for centuries, preserved its identity while keeping up with every city rival in its long history. Chengdu and other emerging megalopolies can try but our city has a heart that no money, nor town planner, can buy.

@lucytobin

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