Shanghai

In 1935, Fortune magazine described Shanghai as “the megalopolis of continental Asia, inheritor of . . . nineteenth-century London and twentieth-century Manhattan.” The city, it noted, was already home to the tallest towers outside of America. That claim—and that reputation— endure. As symbol, consider the new 101-story Shanghai World Financial Center, which was, for a moment, the world’s highest building at 492 meters (1,614 feet), and will still have the world’s largest—and easily the most dramatic—outdoor observation deck.

To say that growth is frenzied in Shanghai does no justice to its pace or scope. If you don’t believe the profusion of construction cranes and other heavy equipment, of buildings rising and rising, swarmed over by workers, then head for the Urban Planning Center. There you can see a gigantic scale model of how already super-futuristic Shanghai will look in 2020.

Its urbanism is uncompromising, its commitment to its dynamic future firm. And yet for all that, this is also a city full of parks, full of tradition, full of both the recent and the more distant past.

Of the green spaces, none is lovelier than sylvan Fuxing Park, on the edge of the elegant part of town still known as the French Concession. There people practice graceful, meditative tai chi soon after dawn, while in the evenings couples fox-trot, quickstep and waltz. Dance is a continuing theme: In Jingan Park, a mile or two west of the center, I witnessed a chorus line (mostly women) putting the finishing touches on a tap-dance routine, their instructor barking commands through a megaphone.

In Renmin Park, the green heart of massive People’s Square, elderly men clatter ivory mah-jongg pieces on weekend afternoons, and people watch admiringly as the one child each couple is permitted to have flies a kite. There’s a cautionary sign warning that “Activities of a feudalistic or superstitious nature are banned.” Well, perhaps not entirely or everywhere: At the Grand Hyatt’s Cloud Nine bar on the 87th floor of the Jinmao Tower, there are fortunetellers.

West and East have converged here since the 19th century; they still do, visibly. Western luxury brands are commonplace and coveted. There’s clothing by Giorgio Armani and a restaurant by Jean-Georges Vongerichten, which happen to share a building on the handsome riverside esplanade known as the Bund. Another building houses the luxury watchmaker Patek Philippe and the Sens & Bund restaurant by the Michelin-starred Pourcel brothers. But if you’re using currency and not a card, you’ll still see the face of Mao Zedong, founder of the People’s Republic of China, on the bank notes.

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What would architects make of some of the buildings, which feel almost as though guided by science fiction? For example, there’s the Oriental Pearl TV Tower, a sort of tripod-based rocket on which two pink illuminated spheres seem to have been impaled. Or the Bund Center with its illuminated lotus crown. Or, especially, the Bund Sightseeing Tunnel that runs beneath the Huangpu River. This 650-meter (2,132-foot) rail link is a procession of glass capsule-like carriages that zip through a hallucinogenic light show, a riot of flashing neon, fiber optics and multicolored bulbs. It’s a trip in every sense.

As is then emerging onto the street in Pudong—the city’s intensely high-rise business district—into a sunken plaza packed with couples dancing to the overamplified strains of the “Skaters’ Waltz.” This is Shanghai today.