You know, it’s funny…in the US we call New York “the city that never sleeps”, but when you go to Shanghai, China, you realize the Big Apple has lost this title to a formidable competitor.

During a normal week in New York, most businesses are closed by 11 PM, people are asleep in their comfortable homes, and the work day for many doesn’t start until 9 AM the next morning.  Halfway around the world however, people are still awake, building and fueling an economy growing at nearly 10% per year.  

As I write this, I sit in the 14th story of a recently renovated hotel, only 20 days old in the Xujahue district of Shanghai.  For less than the price of a Red Roof Inn in most US locales (less than $25 per night), the B&B Inn offers a comparable, yet slightly (and I do mean slightly) lower grade Hilton Conrad feel to business travelers.  

I stare out the window and within 200 feet I can see four building complexes being built for the growing population that is yearning to call Shanghai home, currently 20 million including the surrounding area. In the distance, four more comparable buildings are being built. When you figure that each building includes roughly 350 apartments, this means that about 2,600 new apartments will hit the real estate market in Shanghai within the next 2 to 3 months, and this is only what I can see within roughly 1,500 feet. 

What makes me think of this? Why don’t I go to bed, you might ask? Well the interesting thing is that it is now two o'clock in the morning, damn jetlag.  I am trying to go to bed, but all I can hear are the migrant laborers, come to find their fortune in the big city - doesn’t this sound familiar - working away all through the night. Concrete trucks come and go every ten minutes, 24 hours a day, to deliver their building materials and help to construct what is the fastest growing city in the world.  This is what true growth looks like.

I’ve found the city that truly never sleeps. In China, the inconceivable is becoming conceivable every day.  We are all familiar with the saying, “What once took [fill in the blank] now only takes…” Imagine buildings rising faster than you can blink.  Imagine companies developing through proven business models from the West in seconds as millions of Chinese are given online access each day.  Imagine 1.3 billion people - who are deeply familiar with their history - desiring, longing and willing to do whatever it takes to return to the center of global economic power.  Now maybe you have a glimpse into what China is today. 

China is a nation that has redefined motivation and expansion in a context that the US arguably has not witnessed since the 1920’s.  It is a time of wealth creation, development and city planning that is almost a mirror image of the US some 80 years ago.  So where did the US lose its motivational edge?  

As Thomas Friedman writes in his current best-seller The World is Flat, “In China today, Bill Gates is Britney Spears. In America today, Britney Spears is Britney Spears – and that is our problem.” Who do young Chinese look to for inspiration, who do they want to imitate?  The entrepreneurs and CEOs who helped build the Fortune 500.  Who do young Americans want to imitate?  Icons from the Top 40 and the stars of “Jackass”.  If you don’t believe this reality, review who Chinese President Hu Jintao met with first when he recently visited the US.   

So I sit now and think, ok Brad, why are you so fascinated by this? What is it about China that made you want to go there three times in one year?  My family and friends have asked me the same thing.  I think the answer is what Ben Wood, a Boston architect who designed the new Xintiandi in Shanghai, so eloquently articulated in an interview I watched on CCTV 9 (CCTV International) the last time I was in Shanghai in March.   

Wood stated, “In the US there is uncertainty.  We wake up every day and go to work, and we don’t know if today will be better than yesterday.  In China however, people wake up every day enthusiastic; they know if they work hard, tomorrow will be even better than today.”  This is what is so exciting about China. 

For more information please contact: Brad Feuling bfeuling@purdue.edu

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