A building entrance inside a lilong district

Location in google maps

Browse all of PaD Shanghai here at bricoleurbanism.org

…or here on the PaD Shanghai Flickr Set

The spire of the former Palace of Sino-Soviet Friendship (now Shanghai Exhibition Centre) poking up behind some local buildings along Tongren Road near West Nanjing Road

Location in google maps

Browse all of PaD Shanghai here at bricoleurbanism.org

…or here on the PaD Shanghai Flickr Set

Relaxing at the side of the road

Location in google maps

Browse all of PaD Shanghai here at bricoleurbanism.org

…or here on the PaD Shanghai Flickr Set

A lilong district viewed from a pedestrian overpass at the Yan'an Elevated Road

Location in google maps

Browse all of PaD Shanghai here at bricoleurbanism.org

…or here on the PaD Shanghai Flickr Set

Terminal 2 at Shanghai's Pudong Airport

Location in google maps

Browse all of PaD Shanghai here at bricoleurbanism.org

…or here on the PaD Shanghai Flickr Set

Qibao old town, in suburbs of Shanghai - more or less a shopping street with a bridge over a canal, it's an old village swallowed up by the city and is a short walk from a subway station on Line 9

Location in google maps

Browse all of PaD Shanghai here at bricoleurbanism.org

…or here on the PaD Shanghai Flickr Set

A rather decrepit canal in an unrenovated district of Suzhou's old city

Location in google maps

Browse all of PaD Shanghai here at bricoleurbanism.org

…or here on the PaD Shanghai Flickr Set

Garden of the Master of the Nets (Wangshi Yuan 网师园), the smallest and one of the most famous of Suzhou's classical chinese gardens

Location in google maps

Browse all of PaD Shanghai here at bricoleurbanism.org

…or here on the PaD Shanghai Flickr Set

Birdwatching along the sea coast in suburban Shanghai, near Da Shui Lake in Nan Hui (南汇) district on land fill where they're enclosing former salt marshes and wetlands for future development

Location in google maps

Browse all of PaD Shanghai here at bricoleurbanism.org

…or here on the PaD Shanghai Flickr Set

Despite dramatic decreases in the number of cyclists in Chinese cities over the past 15 to 20 years, transport of goods and products, informal collection of recycling, deliveries and use of bicycles for retail and selling is still very common.

I’ve uploaded a photo gallery (Flickr set) of some of this activity easily seen in Shanghai. While Shanghai is in many other ways a very modern and advanced city, the continuing use of bicycles for so many purposes seems directly related to the presence of so many people willing (or forced) to work for extremely low fees, for which the bicycle remains by far the cheapest and indeed the only affordable means of transportation. Especially over short delivery distances, it would seem to many Chinese almost wasteful to use a truck.

One of the few official agencies still using bicycles is China Post, whose beautiful green delivery bicycles (complete with panniers) can frequently be seen parked in front of buildings.