In his Prix Pictet-winning photo series Yangtze, The Long River, acclaimed photographer Nadav Kander documents the blistering pace of change on China's most famous waterway, along which more people live than in the entire United States. Using the river as a metaphor for constant change, Kander shot the landscape and people along the banks of the Yangtze, from mouth to source. Shot......read more
A single strand of burnt-out Christmas lights weighs almost nothing in the hand. But a bale of burnt-out Christmas tree lights the size of a love seat? That weighs around 2200 pounds, according to Raymond Li, the general manager of Yong Chang Processing, a scrap metal processor in the southern Chinese town of Shijiao. He would know: on a recent Saturday morning I stood between him and three such......read more
For his latest series of images, Chinese photographer Zhang Kechun traveled along the Huang He, the world's sixth largest river, known to us English speakers as the Yellow River. Rising in the Tibetan Himalayas, the Huang He winds 5,000 miles through northeastern China before emptying into the Gulf of Bohai. Armed with a large format camera, Zhang set out to capture life along the river,......read more
China's hyper-dense urban centers tend to conjure images of huge crowds, gridlocked traffic, and polluted air. The Great City, now under construction near the city of Chengdu, aims to be anything but that. Designed by Chicago firm Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill Architecture, the Great City is a plan for a sustainability-focused, pedestrian-based satellite city that 80,000 people will......read more
Called the "Dubai of northern China," Ordos is an Inner Mongolian city that's rich in resources and filled with interesting public architecture. Oddly, however, barely anyone lives there. Designed to be the home of one-million inhabitants, today only a few thousand people live there, making Ordos a veritable modern-day ghost town -- and a perfect skateboarding destination. Filmmaker......read more
Billed as "a socially harmonious, environmentally friendly and resource-conserving city," Tianjin Eco-City is a collaborative effort by the Chinese and Singaporean governments to develop a sustainable city quarter on China's east coast. Now, Steven Holl Architects has been given the go-ahead on designs for two marquee buildings in the "Eco-City." Holl has been commissioned to design the Ecology......read more
Al Gore at Huffington Post: Almost a decade ago, someone asked me a question, "What are the drivers of global change?" I've spent a lot of time over the last eight years thinking about it, and have dedicated much of the last two years to researching, writing and refining my conclusions. The result is my new book, The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change. The book will be released on January......read more
After graduating from an urban university and gaining some experience working in the city, Lifen Yang succumbed to the magnetic pull of her rural homeland near Kumming, in China's Yunnan province. Returning home, she applied her business know-how to launching her own restaurant. Sourcing organic produce from her parents' farm, Yang promotes healthy, sustainable food practices in the area. In "The......read more
Most of us are probably familiar with China's karst region, the spectacular UNESCO World Heritage Site featuring limestone topography replete with sinkholes, vertical shafts, streams, springs, and underground caves. But as we learned from My Modern Met, the karst region isn't the only stunning natural wonder in southern China. The Danxia landform, pictured here in China's Gansu province, is a......read more
In April 2013, photographer Grant Harder traveled to China's ancient, mountainous Yunnan province on assignment for enRoute, Air Canada’s in-flight magazine. Already 6,000 miles from his Vancouver home, Grant decided after finishing his work in Yunnan to stay in China and see what else the country had to offer. But he wouldn't go anywhere nearby. Instead, he took two plane trips and a......read more