AFTER THE SURGE
 

After over a decade of doubledigit economic growth, Shanghai's concerns about its future prosperity now relate to the city's capacity to innovate. Important challenges have resulted from the city's many successes in terms of economic development, attracting foreign investment, international trade, transformation of its built environment and upgrading of its urban infrastructure. These challenges require more complex planning processes and policy interventions than the formulas deployed so far. Shanghai now needs to assume a more defined economic identity and adopt a set of strategic priorities to guide its metropolitan development path. As the density of economic interactions has increased at multiple scales, making decisions about Shanghai's economic future also implies shaping its role in the Yangtze River region, the People's Republic of China, the Asia Pacific and the wider world economy.

Strengthening its centrality at one level may pose negative consequences to the city's other roles - becoming a consolidated global city that is attractive to international investors and leading economic sectors may require different types of public investments and interventions than growing as China's industrial powerhouse and job generator for a rapidly urbanising population. A number of different questions arise from this dilemma. To what degree should policy makers attempt to strengthen the city's advanced services sector? How much effort should be put in to upgrading, modernising and expanding its manufacturing base? Are post-industrial New York and London the models to learn from, or will Shanghai be better off following broader base high-tech development strategies such as those of Tokyo and the city-regions of California. In broader terms, can Shanghai learn from established urban models of economic growth and what lessons can it teach the urban world in terms of development expediency and urban restructuring at a breathtaking pace? What synergies can be fostered between the leading economic sectors of car production, semiconductors, petrochemicals, trade, finance and real estate and construction? How can planning steer property development- roughly half of all fixed capital investment in Shanghai- so that it supports rather than crowds out the city's manufacturing base?

Further questions arise about the relationship between urban development and physical planning in the unique context of Shanghai's urban form and pressure for growth. What is the right territorial balance between Shanghai's suburban industrial parks and development zones, its premium business and commercial districts and the increasingly visible creative industries in the revitalised inner core? What considerations need to be taken in the design of the differentiated workplaces that these industries require? How will these workplaces be integrated to the living spaces of the workforce and the everyday lives of people in Shanghai? What is the social life of Shanghai's multiplying high-rise office towers? What investment, design, planning and tenancy regulations, decisions, agreements and negotiations have shaped their existence? In what symbolic and functional ways does this most ubiquitous workplace of contemporary Shanghai shape and confer meaning to the businesses and livelihoods that it hosts?