Environment and infrastructure development in mega-cities : the case of Shanghai, China

Abstract

As the largest city of China and one of the world's 10 largest cities, Shanghai has experienced rapid economic growth in the recent years. But at the same time this rapid economic growth is placing a major burden on the city's infrastructure and local environment. The purpose of this thesis is to developing an understanding of the current infrastructure situation in Shanghai, its potential development in future and its impacts on the environment. First, the thesis will describe a general picture of Shanghai including geological location, economics and its relation to the country and population growth. Then the thesis will review the current environment and infrastructure problem faced by the city. As air pollution, energy shortage, transportation congestion and poor water quality are the major three hindrances to the sustainable development of Shanghai, these will be the major concerns of this thesis. The conflict between the continually increasing demand for infrastructure facilities with the environmental and financial constraints is not a problem unique in Shanghai. Some specific comparison with other mage-cities will be made to develop a better understanding the related issues and the possible strategies to improve the environment and infrastructure performance in the city will be analyzed. Since the financing is also an important issue related to integrate infrastructure development, finally, this thesis will analyze the current infrastructure investment structure and discuss the potentially new approach for the funding of the infrastructure in Shanghai.