Search China Travel News:

This host city of the World Expo in 2010 views the grand event as a great opportunity to enhance its city image.
Improving people's comprehensive quality will be one of its core tasks.

"Each citizen should reflect on, to some extent, the particular features of the city, and the government shall invest more in educating its people to raise the city's image," said Zhou Hanmin, professor and deputy director of the Bureau of Shanghai World Expo Co-ordination at the Metropolis Image Forum held here on Saturday.

Scholars and experts from home and abroad brainstormed on the topic at the forum, sponsored by Shanghai Telecom as a contribution to the city's preparations for the World Expo.

Zhou said that in the world today, competition among countries is increasingly reflected in the competition of cities and the image of a city is a crucial indicator of the city's comprehensive competitiveness.

"Only four cities - New York, London, Paris and Tokyo - can really be called metropolises, and Shanghai is still far away from reaching this status," he said.

He said that though Shanghai has made great efforts in shaping its infrastructure layout, much more work in city management, legal construction and vogue evolution needs to be done to enhance its world image before ushering in a successful, unforgettable and splendid World Expo.

Zhou was echoed by Piper Gaubatz, associate professor of Geography at the University of Massachusetts, who has been engaged in studying city development worldwide and is the first to put forward the concept of the world city.

"In many Chinese cities, a lot of high-profile buildings have been constructed in the past few years. But to enhance the city image is far more than this," she said.

"An important indicator of a favourable city image is that tourists, investors and residents all view the city as an attractive place," said Zhou Dajian, professor of Tongji University in Shanghai.