Such new Asian identities have emerged cyclically yet spasmodically in different places in different decades: What unifies Tokyo in the 70s and 80’s, Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur in the 1990’s, and Dubai, Shanghai and Shenzhen in 2000s is the sheer pace and scale of urban development challenging many things the Western world holds true, and surfacing therein some of the most dramatic mutations of Western Modernism. On the one hand, the deeper intentions and values behind these transformations remain questionable: Dubai’s “Palms” – its three man-made islands bearing some 10,000 homes - however aerially compelling, are little more than gestural dramatizations of the American suburban sprawl tract, with dead-end streets, garage dominated houses, and clogged roads as residents leave for work each morning.



On the other hand, these post-industrial utopias are emblematic of the rising aspirations and accomplishments of new classes and economies for a place on the world stage. The 2008 Beijing Olympics have been called the “world’s largest single urban development since the Pyramids” by Professor John MacAloon. Amidst China’s booming economy, high growth rates and income polarizations, Beijing built 7 new metro lines, 8 new subways, 2 new Ring Roads, 142 miles of new infrastructure, 22 new stadiums and 252 new hotels, planted 1 million new trees, cleaned 40 kilometers of rivers and created 83 kilometers of new greenbelt planting. The investment is estimated to have generated 2 million new jobs, paling Sydney’s 150,000 and London’s 135,000. Meanwhile, for India, the second fastest growing economy in the world, rising living standards and a huge increase in middle-class numbers fail to hide the groaning poverty of well over a third of the billion-plus people. Even so, India not-so-long-ago produced a paltry 20,000 cars annually, now, it sells that many in less than a week.​