"The two bridges taking the Inner Ring Road across the Huanpu--- especially the great coiled access ramp for the Nanpu Bride in Puxi-- also required the removal of hundreds of families. The decision to go with bridges for the symbolic first linkage to Pudong is itself revealing. Feasibility studies had actually shown that a tunnel would be less expensive to build and more efficient, requiring minimal condemnation and demolition. But tunnels are not photogenic; they strike no heroic silhouette against the sky, despite whatever ingenious engineering might have gone into their construction. A bridge, on the other hand, is a proud and soaring thing that makes for great publicity shots and tourists brochures. It is a rare mayor or city official who can such down such eye candy, especially when competing for the good will and fiscal blessings of Beijing officialdom."
- excerpt from The Concrete Dragon: China's Urban Revolution and What it Means for the World by Thomas J. Campanella...so I wonder, what's the ratio? How many political decisions are based on actual need, and how many are based on merely producing "eye-candy"? I don't disagree with the need of city markers: not only are they visually stimulating, but it definitely adds character to the city-- a persona that many of us city-dwellers definitely need, consciously or unconsciously. However, there should be a limit to pride, shouldn't there?
Then again, it's only 'natural' we feel an irrational need to subdue mountains, and make our own monsters.
As one classmate put it, when we were sitting in front of the Grande Arch in La Defense, watching the sunset wash the tall steel giants:
"Man, it's a monster showdown." Buildings cry out to each other, like all miserable humans:
"I am smarter, more handsome, richer, more colorful, more popular than you!!!"
