consider the two skylines shown above; the first is of beijing, in particular the area around the forbidden city, the second is of shanghai, in particular the puxi area. each is an example of a contemporary chinese city, yet there seems to be few similarities between the two images. why is this so?
in beijing, buildings in the immediate vicinity of the forbidden city are prohibited from exceeding a certain height, presumably so as not to diminish the forbidden city's grandeur. as a result, the skyline here is kept low and flat, gradually getting higher with increasing distance from the forbidden city. thus, central beijing's flat skyline - governed by the state - and the "oldness" or "permanence" of the forbidden city affirm beijing's status as the political centre of china. on the other hand, shanghai's plethora of eclectic architecture seems to follow no rules whatsoever. the ups and downs in the skyline are representative the city's status as an global economic powerhouse, with each skyscraper a monument to western capitalism, and the skyline as a whole appearing almost as a graph of the shanghai stock exchange. shanghai is a fickle city, whose rapidly and constantly mutating urban fabric is driven not by sure-fire politics but rather by volatile economics.
thus, we can use a city's elevation (skyline) as an indicator of status.
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