My feeling throughout the first day was that the pavilions, while fantastic in their execution of construction and media presentations, was lacking in an important thing... substance. A lot of the pavilions, from my understanding, were no more than cultural exhibitions or tourism doodads. Hainan, for instance, was telling us all about it's history and economic development, and they showed us a fantastic video of people smiling and running around the beach, eating fruit and all that. What they didn't show was what exactly the province itself was doing to make it's cities better. After all, "Better city, Better life" is the slogan.
The spirit of the expo was indeed celebratory and meant to give a bright enthusiasm for the world ahead of us, (which is good), but at just about every Zone B pavilion save for the Republic of Korea, none really exhibited any concern for the future of cities, other than that economic and "cultural" growth was necessary for their betterment. Just about everyone was excited about how cool each pavilion looked and how awesome each culture was. It is something very important, I suppose, for the residents of China to experience what different cultures and regions of the world have to offer, in order to be a more respectful world citizen and more engaged in the public sphere for socially-direcrted projects.
My heart, as well as others I am confident, yearns for more details than a 3 hour line and a 3d video prism talking about the food of Northern China. I wanted examples, I wanted considerations of the present that necessitate such a bright future. How do we get there? What exactly makes for a better city, other than brainwashing kids and telling them they're the future, that you should invest in their region, some 3D HD televisions or come vacation (or wish you could go) there? Why should we think and live for things beyond ourselves?
How do you make a better city? Don't give us a cliche answer about positive attitude and promoting culture (which of course is not just cliche, but true).
Enter the UPBA (Urban Best Practices Area). Area E, tucked into the corner of the exposition and across the river from the main eye candy, retains nearly 55 permanent case studies of Cities and municipalities that have established or are working to establish elements for the improvement of sustainability, the environment and quality of life. The last 2 days were spent here, engaging topics on bioremediative river parks (Chengdu), distributed development centers and local food production(Alsace region of France), water filtration and conservation (Guangzhou), public transportation(Madrid), land use innovations and technologies for construction and household use that will minimize our carbon footprint (Broad Pavilion). There are so many examples I have gone through, having nearly completed Zone E in my time here, and I hope I can continue engaging how exactly a better city works, and how it fits into our present.
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