The Chinese seem to be enamoured of their version of Le Corbusier’s concept of ‘la cite’ radieuse’: the radiant city composed of high-rise concrete blocks placed within a park-like ambience. Throughout the country there is a relentless, tryphid-like march of new multi-storied housing, rarely less than twenty stories high, that is taking over more traditional settlements.

Most have heard about the destruction of over half of the characteristic Beijing alleys or hutongs in the last thirty years.

Shanghai, too, has its characteristic shikumen lanes which are increasingly under threat. They are also known as londang and consist of two or three story houses with a large gate before each house.

In many respects shikumen are like the old back-to-back terraced houses so common in early industrial Britain and which, after years of demolition as slums, are now being preserved, gentrified and even turned into National Trust-like tourist sights.

Some preservation orders have been placed on the Shanghai shikumen but, regrettably, the damage has been done, the traditional city skyline has changed inexorably and soaring land values encourage high density housing and speculation.

These photos describe what is increasingly happening to Shanghai and it is rather sad. The same thing will no doubt increase in my beloved Saigon but it is all about being part of ‘dragon economies.’

China is a ‘no arguments’ state. Conservation societies have little shrift here. One day a city dweller may have been living for generations in a hutong or shikamen only to be told that a roomier and more hygienic twentieth floor flat is awaiting them twenty miles away for immediate occupation. Communities are fractured, families dispersed and I can only wonder if those blights of social anomie and drug trafficking will follow as they so often have done when Britain began to despise terraced housing and fell in love with a debased version of ‘Corbu’ in its post-war estates, so many of which are now being torn down and replaced by those once-considered outdated low rise housing.

A weird phenomenon of modern China is that of ghost cities, well described elsewhere. So many new high rise sprawls lie empty or even uncompleted. While Britain is desperate to catch up with its housing shortage it seems that the Chinese government is planning to avoid such an eventuality by building accommodation even before it’s needed. What else can be behind the interminable row of vacant high rises one spots from train windows in that country? Mass social engineering and movement of rural populations to urban environments? Who knows.

The mysteries of the east are ever present to transform themselves into new ones.