Familiar Places

The Shanghai Sculpture Space in the background and Shanghai Sculpture Garden in the foreground.

When I visit new cities, I have a bad habit of comparing their neighborhoods to places in the metro Detroit area. I don’t know why I do it, maybe it’s to make things more familiar. When I visited Portland, I found a neighborhood that reminded me of Birmingham, Mich. and Ann Arbor. When I visited Toronto, I compared neighborhoods to Royal Oak and Grosse Pointe.

Shanghai hasn’t been any different. When I drove into the city the first day I arrived, it reminded me somehow of driving into Chicago.

Yesterday, I went to an area of Shanghai called Red Town to visit the Shanghai Sculpture Garden. Red Town itself seems like an isolated artists’ enclave, with a few galleries and cafes.

But what really struck me was how much the Shanghai Sculpture Space  – which the Sculpture Garden sits outside of – looks like the Russell Industrial Center in Detroit. Both places were former factories and both seem to be the anchors of developing artist-and-creative-centric areas.

 {And on a side note, if you’re looking at the photo, yes – it was that hazy.}

More from the Shanghai Sculpture Garden