Shanghai these days is not just a city that never sleeps – it is a city that plants whole landscapes in the dark.
One recent evening in the city's famous old French Concession, dumper trucks and excavators were working feverishly to complete a Metro station. The next morning, not only was there a fully functioning new Metro line but an avenue of fully grown shade trees, planted alongside a newly laid mosaic pathway.
“Shanghai did in 15 years what London did in 150,” says Wu Zhiqiang, professor of urban planning at Tongji University. Begun in 1995, the Metro system for China's commercial capital has doubled in reach to 420km in just the past year.