Well, believe it or not, the pace of development in Guangzhou has gotten even hotter in the past five years. When I left, GZ had two subway lines. Five are now running with a sixth scheduled to start in May. A few more major interchanges and expressways were added making a trip through the city very fast. Before 2005, a taxi ride from the train station to my school area always cost around 50 RMB. Today you can get pretty much anywhere in the city for 35 RMB. It's a good thing I didn't try to haggle with the taxi driver when we got in. I'd have happily paid 50 RMB for the trip.
Much of the current construction is due to the 2010 Asian Games which will be held in GZ in November. In addition to a multitude of new venues, roadways and attractions being build specifically for that event, most of the city's buildings and neighborhoods are going through a massive renovation. I was in neighborhoods I used to regularly visit and could not recognize a thing - partly because of the new buildings that had popped up, but mostly because every other building was covered with scaffolding and green netting.
All the new construction is getting rid of neglected old neighborhoods and replacing them with shiny new ultra-modern glass and steel structures that dwarf most buildings in North America. The most recently completed building is the GZTV Tower which overtook Toronto's CN Tower as the world's tallest free-standing structure.
With all the new developments obliterating older neighborhoods, it is refreshing to see certain old structure being protected. The Chinese have a saying that "the new won't come unless you get rid of the old," and the country has lost a lot of historical structures because of that. The cultural revolution didn't help matters much either. Guangzhou has no shortage of ugly Mao-era that really need to be bulldozed, but it's also a 2,800-year-old city which should have a lot more historical structures than it does.
It was great to see that the 400-year-old Chigang Pagoda still standing in the shadow of the new GZTV Tower. Although the grounds to the pagoda are accessible, the area is not maintained and the building itself is not open to the public. It does, however, look like the place will be going through a major refurbishing as the area surround it is somewhat cordoned off and a building that was once a restaurant now only houses a caretaker for the area.
Another place we visited was Liu Rong Si, or the Six Banyan Pagoda Temple. Liu Rong Si was originally built in 537 AD, then rebuilt in 1097 and 1373 after being ravaged by fires. The current 1373 structure that still stands was restored in 1900 and is an extremely popular temple to visit - for locals and tourists alike. A Buddhist monastery is on the pagoda grounds and visitors can watch the services led by monks. When I last visited the temple in 2005, tourists were able to enter the pagoda and visit each of the nine floor. Tourist traffic must be taking its toll on the building as it is no longer open to visitors.
Meanwhile, in other parts of the city, new buildings are built to look old. In one subdivision, a replica of Beijing's Summer Palace Pagoda was built at the top of a mountain an houses a popular restaurant and tea house.
Guangzhou has long been an industrial centre of China that really didn't have much going for it as a tourist destination, nor did it have much visual appeal, architecturally speaking. That has changed dramatically over the past 10 years and Guangzhou's skyline easily rivals that of Shanghai, New York, Chicago or London.
On the down side, Guangzhou is still the buckle of China's industrial belt and the air quality is among the worst in the world.
The city may have a great skyline, but it can be difficult to see on most days.
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