As more and more Chinese cities built their own skyscrapers, Shenzhen’s weaknesses in other areas have been exposed. However, even before the central government’s ban on buildings over 500 meters, there were questions about the sustainability of the city’s development model. Higher and faster seemed to be written into Shenzhen’s genes. That same year, Shenzhen’s GDP surpassed Hong Kong’s for the first time. After work on the structure was completed, Shenzhen was home to 12 of the 144 buildings around the world over 200 meters in height - more than any other city. The city’s 592.5-meter Ping An Finance Center, completed in 2017, is currently the second tallest building in China. Since then, the city has continuously pushed the limits of “Shenzhen height” upward. Construction also set a record for “Shenzhen speed”: a floor was completed every two and a half days. Completed in 1996, Shun Hing Square immediately became a Shenzhen landmark - dominating views of the city from Hong Kong. The resulting 384-meter-tall Shun Hing Square is known locally as the “Land King Building,” due in part to the record-high price of the land it was built on.
Along with the local manufacturing economy, the city’s property market also took off: In Luohu District, the Shenzhen government held China’s first international tender for land use rights, which was won by a Hong Kong-based firm for a then-record $140 million. With Deng’s formal endorsement, Shenzhen redoubled its commitment to economic development. Looking out over Shenzhen and Hong Kong from a revolving restaurant on the building’s 49th floor, China’s paramount post-Mao leader told the assembled crowd that, “Those who do not promote reform should be brought down from their leadership positions.” When Deng Xiaoping travelled to Shenzhen to try and relaunch China’s stagnating reforms in 1992, he chose the International Trade Center as the venue for a key speech. Before long, “Shenzhen height” was added to the lexicon alongside “Shenzhen speed.” The speed with which the building was finished - construction moved at the pace of one floor every three days - stunned observers both inside and outside China. Practical considerations aside, however, many Shenzhen officials also associated skyscrapers with progress and material development and were correspondingly eager to break ground on new landmarks.Ĭhina’s first multi-use super high-rise building, the Shenzhen International Trade Center, was completed in 1985. Given the city’s relatively small geographic footprint, it was natural that Shenzhen’s planners would build upward. The unprecedentedly rapid development of Shenzhen - summed up in the expression “Shenzhen speed” - seems to offer visible proof of the efficiency of China’s socialist system relative to the “capitalist world” across the river. Forty years on, the stagnant northern reaches of Hong Kong pale in comparison to the rows of gleaming high-rises on the Sham Chum River’s northern bank. Separated from Hong Kong by only a narrow river, the contrast between Shenzhen’s poverty and Hong Kong’s prosperity stimulated Chinese leaders’ ambitions for reform in the early 1980s. The city’s ambitious approach to development is reflected in its built environment. Home to some 20 million people, it is almost synonymous with the success of China’s “reform and opening-up” period. In the four decades since, it has grown from a sleepy agricultural border town across the Sham Chum River from Hong Kong into one of the world’s largest megacities. One of China’s youngest cities, Shenzhen’s rise began when the central government named it one of the country’s first special economic zone in 1980. But perhaps no city was more affected than the southern metropolis of Shenzhen. The document, which marked the formal end of China’s skyscraper boom, had ramifications for cities across the country. Last July, China’s powerful National Development and Reform Commission issued a notice banning the construction of buildings taller than 500 meters.
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