Backstreet hovels contrast with billion dollar skyscraper apartments. Construction is everywhere, be it city blocks flattened for urban renewal or apartments being built to relocate farmers. You can't go anywhere without seeing a bulldozer preparing terrain, derricks hoisting building blocks, mixers pouring foundation or piles of bricks awaiting mortar. Until recently real estate-related construction accounted for about 30% of the country's economic activity. Whether this will continue is questionable, as work appeared to have stopped at some sites.

Shanghai's Old Town shown here is being preserved for its tourist value.