yeah, but who got the economic benefits of these skyscrapers displacing the old neighborhood? It's a rhetorical question, I realize the answer is complex - certainly some in the old neighorhood got ancillary economic benfits that improve their own lives, and the new buildings their tenents drive new and expanded economic activities. But at same time, a lot of people alos just keep getting squeezed and pushed out to the edges.
There is serious economic ghetto-zation in China, the gap between the have's and have not's, between the developed big cities and the vast countryside - and we are not even introducing external, western baseline, the disparity is huge even just using China's own domestic demographics.
It's interesting times ...
Don't forget, that this "ghetto-zation" you are speaking of was already there and much more pervasive (i.e., everyone lived that way). Now, there is a something better to contrast this to. And like any new development, someone has the priviledge to get their's first.
China is building upwards around 7 billion square feet of housing every year. Do you honestly believe that just a few just keep hoarding all the housing and thereby increasing their personal inventory of housing while everyone else continue to live in squalor? Millions of new housing units are being built in China every year. But there are over a billion people living in China. Originally, they all lived in 3rd world housing. I mean, it really is just a matter of mathematics. If China has about 300 million house holds, and China constructs roughly 10 million housing units per year, it'll take at least 30 years to provide the country with housing with modern amenities. So, in the mean time, there will be a big contrast between the haves and have nots. Those "ghetto's" will still be around for years to come even as China stretches the world's resources to build housing for it's people.
I was in Seuol back in 91. I was surprised that there was still alot of poverty there. But whatever the poverty level, I am sure Seuol was alot better in 91 than in 53. This applies to any city in China, 2005 is better than 1985. And I'm willing to bet in 2020, the getto's of Shanghai will be significantly smaller (though still there along with the naysayers) and the skyline several times more brighter.