ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the planning and development of the Lujiazui Finance and Trade Zone – one of the four development zones in Pudong – and its evolution into a ‘financial city’. It describes the planning and urban design for the Lujiazui Central Area, the earliest stage in the development of Pudong. It traces this process from the initial planning efforts, including a high-profile international design consultation in the early 1990s, to Lujiazui’s rise as a mature international financial centre in the 21st century. It then introduces the precinct’s development approach, managed and financed through a government-led development corporation, and the shaping of its urban forms through verticalisation and the creation of public spaces. Alongside the spatial transformation of the area, the chapter investigates its functional transformation, underpinned by the spatial changes, through the financialisation of economic activities. This chapter concludes with reflections on how the area’s planning was influenced by physical determinism and economic-centrism, and describes how this has now led to the recent planning reorientation from developing a ‘zone’ to making a ‘city’.
