Seattle vs. Shanghai: Democracy Means Inefficiency?
Wendy Liu
February 24, 2007
At a recent Chinese-American event dinner, I had fun chatting with two interesting neighbors at the table. On my left was a seasoned Seattle urban planning consultant. Our conversation started with his tour down China’s Yangtze River last summer, with his marveling at Beijing’s decision to build the $25 billion Three Gorges Dam, the world’s largest hydro project, and did it. It then went on to the construction and architecture miracle of Shanghai that he also visited. The gentleman on my right in fact came from Shanghai many years ago. He beamed at the mention of the multi-style high-rises in today’s Shanghai and compared them with those of Spain’s Barcelona. Our three-way conversation then converged naturally on the Alaskan Way Viaduct saga at home. Mr. “Shanghai” said that the efficiency in China was scary. Mr. “Urban Planning” sighed that over here we could never get anything done. Right in the middle, I said maybe we needed something in between.
Alaskan Way Viaduct is an elevated highway that runs along Seattle’s waterfront. Built in 1953, its age showed with damages in an earthquake in 2001. Since then, debate has been going on as to repair it or rebuild it or replace it or remove it. Recently, the issue has come to a stalemate because of the dispute between the City of Seattle and the State of Washington. Mayor Greg Nickels favors a surface-tunnel hybrid in place of the viaduct, estimated at $3.4 billion, while Governor Christine Gregoire favors a new elevated structure, estimated between $2.4-2.8 billion. What comes next? Seattle residents will vote on a special ballot on March 13.
Even for a person with no knowledge or interest in construction issues, the endless sound bites and headlines over the future of the Alaskan Way Viaduct force one to think about construction. With the dinner conversation over construction in China and in Seattle, my past experience with construction rushed back.
In the 1980s, I was a resident of Shenzhen, China, an earlier version of Shanghai. Before 1979, Shenzhen was a fishing village across a river from Hong Kong. Its tallest building was the three-storied local government office. From the day it was designated the first “Special Economic Zone” by the Chinese government as an experiment of market-oriented economy and export base, it adopted the slogan “ Time is Money.” It has never stopped racing with time since. Today’s Shenzhen is a major manufacturing center, one of the richest cities in China, with a population over 3 million, with over a dozen high-rises taller than 200 meters, a thriving stock exchange, not to say the plant where most of the world’s iPods come from. Dubbed “the Overnight City,” it was also described as one that built “one high-rise a day and one boulevard every three days.” I know exactly how overnight it was. I had literally lived in an apartment building with construction going on at night all around it.
Yes, China has been in a hurry to make up all the time lost under Mao. Yes, China is a non-democracy, with no direct elections held above township and county levels or ballots ever over the building of a special economic zone, or a dam, or a high-rise. But the Chinese citizens’ main complaint these days is not about the speed of all the new construction, it is about the equity of the new prosperity.
The issue of the Alaskan Way Viaduct’s repair was first raised six years ago. The concern over its safty began as early as 1989 when an earthquake struck San Francisco. It is hard to know how many studies have been conducted, how many meetings have been held, and how many politicians and specialists have worked on the issue. But an “Alaskan Way Viaduct” search at the City of Seattle website turned up 1510 documents. The same search on the State of Washington Department of Transportation website brought up 1200 documents. That’s a lot of all talk and no action.
All talk and no action has certainly seen its grander version recently in the other Washington over the Iraq War. In comparison, our question of when we will reach a conclusion over the Alaskan Way Viaduct is, at least, less life-and-death than the question of when we will see the end of the Iraq War.
Still, as Mr. “Urban Planning” said at the dinner party, how nice it would be to reach a happy medium between China’s way of construction and ours. As for the “scary” efficiency of China’s, as Mr. “Shanghai” described, we could really use a little here.
Alaskan Way Viaduct is an elevated highway that runs along Seattle’s waterfront. Built in 1953, its age showed with damages in an earthquake in 2001. Since then, debate has been going on as to repair it or rebuild it or replace it or remove it. Recently, the issue has come to a stalemate because of the dispute between the City of Seattle and the State of Washington. Mayor Greg Nickels favors a surface-tunnel hybrid in place of the viaduct, estimated at $3.4 billion, while Governor Christine Gregoire favors a new elevated structure, estimated between $2.4-2.8 billion. What comes next? Seattle residents will vote on a special ballot on March 13.
Even for a person with no knowledge or interest in construction issues, the endless sound bites and headlines over the future of the Alaskan Way Viaduct force one to think about construction. With the dinner conversation over construction in China and in Seattle, my past experience with construction rushed back.
In the 1980s, I was a resident of Shenzhen, China, an earlier version of Shanghai. Before 1979, Shenzhen was a fishing village across a river from Hong Kong. Its tallest building was the three-storied local government office. From the day it was designated the first “Special Economic Zone” by the Chinese government as an experiment of market-oriented economy and export base, it adopted the slogan “ Time is Money.” It has never stopped racing with time since. Today’s Shenzhen is a major manufacturing center, one of the richest cities in China, with a population over 3 million, with over a dozen high-rises taller than 200 meters, a thriving stock exchange, not to say the plant where most of the world’s iPods come from. Dubbed “the Overnight City,” it was also described as one that built “one high-rise a day and one boulevard every three days.” I know exactly how overnight it was. I had literally lived in an apartment building with construction going on at night all around it.
Yes, China has been in a hurry to make up all the time lost under Mao. Yes, China is a non-democracy, with no direct elections held above township and county levels or ballots ever over the building of a special economic zone, or a dam, or a high-rise. But the Chinese citizens’ main complaint these days is not about the speed of all the new construction, it is about the equity of the new prosperity.
The issue of the Alaskan Way Viaduct’s repair was first raised six years ago. The concern over its safty began as early as 1989 when an earthquake struck San Francisco. It is hard to know how many studies have been conducted, how many meetings have been held, and how many politicians and specialists have worked on the issue. But an “Alaskan Way Viaduct” search at the City of Seattle website turned up 1510 documents. The same search on the State of Washington Department of Transportation website brought up 1200 documents. That’s a lot of all talk and no action.
All talk and no action has certainly seen its grander version recently in the other Washington over the Iraq War. In comparison, our question of when we will reach a conclusion over the Alaskan Way Viaduct is, at least, less life-and-death than the question of when we will see the end of the Iraq War.
Still, as Mr. “Urban Planning” said at the dinner party, how nice it would be to reach a happy medium between China’s way of construction and ours. As for the “scary” efficiency of China’s, as Mr. “Shanghai” described, we could really use a little here.
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