中国、美国与野心勃勃的城市

文章试图探究城市、野心与国家命运之间的联系,阐述如今中国之于美国来说就像是当初美国之于"旧世界"——明日的工厂、大胆的城市未来的熔炉。文章在将上海浦东的天际线比作中国城市激变的标准案例的同时,归纳出它与美国城市的黄金时代——20世纪30年代的纽约之间的类似之处。文章继而描述了汽车与郊区的诱惑如何平息美国的城市期望,并导致美国进入一个低效的、不可持续的城市无序蔓延的时代。文中痛惜怯懦与短视已经成为如今美国的建筑文化特色,无数障碍在阻挠建筑建起来。但文章依然意识到这种发展的缓慢未必是有害的,并总结出一个真正进步的社会是那些拥有人本主义的"软件"的社会——例如保护市民不被野心过大的发展计划所伤害,以及其他对社会的平等与公正的保障——这与高耸的摩天楼和耀眼的公共建筑等"硬件"同样重要。

China,the United States and the Urbanism of Ambition

This essay explores the nexus between urbanism, ambition,and the fate of nations.It argues that China has become to America what America once was to the＂Old World＂—the workshop of tomorrow,foundry of a bold urban future.Using the skyline of Shanghai Pudong as a touchstone of China＇s urban surge,the essay draws analogies to the golden age of urbanism in the United States—New York in the 1930s.It then shows how the automobile and the lure of suburbia stilled America＇s urban promise and led to an era of inefficient, unsustainable sprawl.The essay deplores the seeming timidity and smallness of vision that characterizes build- ing culture in American today,the numerous impediments that obstruct getting things built.But it also recognizes that such slowness is not necessarily bad,and concludes that a truly progressive society is one in which the＂software＂of humanism—safeguards to protect citizens from overambitious development schemes,for example,and other assurances of social equity and justice—is as advanced as the＂hardware＂of tall skyscrapers and glamorous public works