The Urban Planning Exhibition showcases Shanghai’s extraordinary growth. Sarah will be writing more about this on her own blog at www.sarahtanburn.wordpress.com (not accessible in China) soon.

Even for the non-regeneration specialist it was fascinating. The picture is the enormous model of the city. It is taken looking (on the city’s axis) north east; you can see the sharp elbow of the Huangpu river under the Pearl, and the sharp tower of the World Finance Centre. The supporting material includes pictures from the 19th and 20th century. In 1984 – less than 30 years ago – there was almost nothing on that side of the river except marsh and paddy fields. All of that enormous city has gone up in the time since the UK’s miners’ strike.