ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a complete examination of the planning of Greater Shanghai over nearly a full century from 1927 to 2017, bridging the city’s planning history under the Nationalist Government and the Communist Government before and after 1949. The chapter summarises three distinct patterns from the city’s historical master plans. First, the plans have been highly political and ideological, subject to strong political will and the influence of political leaders at the time they were developed. Second, approaches to planning Shanghai have remained top-down, elitist, rational, and expert-centric. Third, planning tools have been highly physical, technical, design-led, infrastructure-dominated, and land use-controlled, strongly prioritising economic growth over environmental and social concerns. However, the latest Shanghai 2035 plan has started to shift away from these practices, through incorporating some forms of public consultation and participation into the plan-making process, and through stressing the public policy nature of master plans. A history of planning Greater Shanghai also offers a prism through which to view the evolution of modern planning in China.
