From the Financial Times (link):
In Shanghai’s long march to be the international city of the 21st century, no idea is too far-fetched. That, at least, is what Raymond Shaw is hoping.
A Beijing-born American who runs the China office of an engineering multinational, Mr Shaw has launched a proposal to raise the 20-odd buildings on the Bund – Shanghai’s riverfront promenade – by seven metres to put in a new floor of luxury stores. In his eyes, it is the perfect marriage of modern China’s twin passions – shopping and engineering.
In most cities, such a plan would never get off the ground. A row of elegant 1920s buildings that once housed the city’s financial firms, the Bund is, after all, one of Shanghai’s most distinctive landmarks, even if it is also a reminder of its colonial past.
But in China the plan will get a hearing.