At the close of 2004, hundreds of thousands of people gathered around the Taipei 101 Financial Center, craning their necks to watch the building light up one stage at a time. Beamed around the world in television broadcasts, this sight of the world's tallest building also made for a beautiful "image advertisement" for the city of Taipei.

Cities are places where modern stories take place.

Points of light of different sizes and brightness attract people's gaze, and landmark buildings of all forms help to shape the territory of the contemporary world.

On the other side of the Taiwan Strait, since China has stepped onto the global economic stage, the tide has spread from the coastal cities of the Yangtze Delta to those of the Pearl River Delta. Among all of these major and minor cities, Shanghai, forever the gateway to China, and Shenzhen, the model for reform and opening, are representative.

As the saying goes, "You can only watch a show when your belly's full." As two of the most economically influential cities in China, the quality of cultural facilities and events in Shanghai and Shenzhen are also the finest in their respective regions. These two cities, along with Hong Kong and Taipei, long established as models for cultural development in Chinese cities, are together the four brightest stars in the Chinese world. Over the years, they have built a relationship of both cooperation and competition. As they move into an era of globalization and the creative economy, competition between the four is moving from manufacturing to culture and from size to quality of life.

In other words, in the past these four cities compared themselves to one another in terms of size, and political and economic influence. In the future, however, more time will be spent comparing "lifestyles."

Since 1998, members of the arts and culture world in these four places have organized the Four-City Forum on Cultural Exchange, holding conferences and forums each year. Corresponding to the trend, forums held over the past four years have focused on the cultural and creative industries, truly reflecting reality.

The ability to create wealth is a primary indicator of cities' competitiveness, and all four cities have joined to discuss how to shape their images through the cultural industry and make "integrating culture with tourism" the shared mission of industry, government, and the educational world.

For over a decade, there have been heated debates on both sides of the straits about whether culture should become a kind of business activity. Like it or not, however, as global competition continues to increase, if these four cities want to find a way to make their mark on the world map, they have no choice but to get in the game.

When talking about Shenzhen, the city of the mythical roc bird, it is rare that someone does not mention the impression made on them by Shennan Road.

As one of the city's three main east-west corridors, Shennan Road is 120 meters across at its widest point, with traffic flowing around flowerbeds. As night falls, the high-rise buildings on both sides form an urban canyon. With its headquarters for global companies, five-star hotels, and gatherings of designer brands, Shenzhen is a model city for China's "reform and opening" policies. Even though the city was only established two decades ago, its population-with an average age of 28-is filled with confidence.

Shenzhen's confidence that it can stay ahead of the rest of southern China has seen subtle changes in the past few years, however. Since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, the city's status as a special economic zone no longer distinguishes it from other areas in terms of incentives for business and development. Now that Shenzhen is no longer "special," it must compete under the same conditions with the coastal cities that are springing up all around. With powerful opponents on all sides, the forces of competition have been closing in on Shenzhen.

Growing concerns

Spurred on by the reform and opening policies, Shenzhen sprang up out of nowhere. In 20 years it became a major city in southeastern China, boasting over 10 million residents and a network of freeways flowing through the city that link it with every part of the Pearl River Delta. Driving through Luohu, China's most active border crossing, you arrive in Hong Kong, where the driver's seat changes to the other side, and the symbol of the city changes from a roc to a flying dragon.

To meet ever-growing competition in the war for tourist dollars, last year Hong Kong spent HK$9 million to design the distinctive "flying dragon" logo to be used in a variety of publicity materials. Beginning in March 2004, three bright red "Brand HK" buses went all the way to Singapore as a way to spread this image advertising for "Asia's World City."

Located in the region that has seen the world's fastest economic growth over the last decade, while Chinese cities in East Asia may enjoy the benefits together, the competition between them goes on around the clock, and their rivalries are no less brutal than those carried on with non-Chinese cities.

In the past, when cities wanted to see how they stacked up against their neighbors, the first items for discussion always included numbers on new business startups and results on luring in multinational corporations, as well as figures on imports, exports, and residents' incomes. Since entering the era of the "cultural industry," however, cities have found new benchmarks for measuring their competitiveness.

"The cultural industry has become a hot topic, in a flourishing 'attention economy.' A city's image and 'brand' have become key issues in its competitiveness," says Lee Jen-fang, director of the Graduate Institute of Technology and Innovation Management at National Chengchi University. "Whether it's the city's image or the city's brand, the secret is to draw people's attention."

As every city throws open its doors to attract visitors, and from celebrations and image advertising to logo design, every city's officials are making similar efforts.

"In the globalized era, a region's 'nodes' are helpful for bringing in capital and human talent, and are good for increasing visibility when it comes to attracting visitors," says Nanfang Shuo, a Taiwanese cultural critic respected in both Taiwan and China. According to Nanfang Shuo, there are already two basic models for this type of competition between urban nodes. One involves a reliance on massive "landmark" buildings, while the other, naturally, includes more and more marketing events and urban celebrations.

Even if it has limited experience and strength in marketing itself internationally, as Taiwan's model metropolis, Taipei has naturally also thrown its energy into these efforts. The recently ended "Visit Taiwan Year 2004" was also the 120th anniversary of Taipei's founding, and throughout the year Taipei City Government held a series of celebrations. Three marathons billed as "international" events were organized in cooperation with businesses, culminating with December's Taipei International Marathon, an event that drew 90,000 participants from around the globe and brought a fitting end to a year of events designed to bring publicity for the city.

The city's lure

The storefronts light up, illuminating a world of luxury and sometimes dangerous temptation. In China, it happens in Shenzhen's Shennan Road and Shanghai's Xintiandi district. In Hong Kong, ruled under the "one country, two systems" arrangement, it happens in the Lan Kwai Fong District. In Taipei, it happens in the recently revived Hsimenting or the newly emerging Hsinyi District. All of these places make you want to linger with no thought of going home, whether you are a resident or tourist.

While these four cities have shown the most dazzling economic performance in the region, developments in arts and culture there have also show the cities' enormous capacity in this respect. Long proud of their worldwide status as Asian tiger economies, Taipei and Hong Kong are both cities with rich cultural reserves. At the same time, since Shenzhen and Shanghai have cast aside socialism and embraced capital and the market, becoming the cities with the fastest development and highest per-capita income in China, their demands for culture have grown, too. In Shanghai, which has a per-capita income of only US$5,800, large and small theaters have sprung up everywhere. While their prices are high-tickets at the big theaters fetch RMB300-800, while smaller theaters often charge RMB80-300-the theaters can fill every seat.

Shenzhen, on the other hand, bills itself as "two capitals, one city": the library capital and the piano capital, all within a carefully designed city. While its per-capita income is only a little more than US$6,000, the variety of "big-box" bookstores there is truly impressive.

You only need to take a stroll through one of the city's "book cities," which rises seven stories and holds over 1000 square meters of space for merchandise on each level. As you watch residents pushing around carts full of books, it's easy to see how in 2003 the output of Shenzhen's "print and media reproduction industry" could hit a value of RMB18.9 billion.

Taipei, which long ago passed through the early stages of rapid economic development, shares this same love of books. The reputation for elegance at Taipei's Eslite bookstore draws throngs of people, including tourists from Hong Kong who come to Taipei for the weekend just to visit the store.

Six years ago, the Taipei City Government established the Department of Cultural Affairs, and emphasis on residents' participation became a major strand of its cultural policy. The original mix included high quality arts and culture exhibitions, performances, and events, while the city government promoted all kinds of arts festivals that were free of charge to city residents. Because of this, the average number of times a year that Taipei residents attend arts and culture events reached 13 or higher. With these kinds of numbers, Taipei was leaving other cities on both sides of the strait far behind.

The truth behind "image films"

The cultural industry has become a hot topic on both sides of the strait, gaining status as an important part of economic and cultural development. In these discussions, Western cities' experience with development takes up much of the airtime. When talking about how to market and revive cities, the case of Bilbao, Spain, absolutely has to be included. Other important case studies include Denmark's design arts and Sweden's minimalistic style. Representatives from industry, government, and academia also work to learn from the impressive achievements of countries such as Britain and Australia. When looking at the strategy for coordination between South Korea's fashion industry and that country's home and consumer electronics industry, many people get ambitious and think, "If South Korea can do it, why can't we?"

Beginning in 1998, members of the arts and culture world from Taipei, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong have organized the Four-City Forum on Cultural Exchange, holding conferences and forums each year to discuss happenings in urban culture. Centered on cultural workers, for the last four years the forum's discussions have all been related to the cultural industry.

"Why should culture have to be promoted with ulterior motives?" asks forum member Sun Zhenhua, head of the Shenzhen Sculpture Academy. This, he says, is like "building the stage with culture and letting economics play the show."

When cultural development comes together with competition between cities, the tension is reflected in their image advertising films: sunshine by day, dazzling lights by night, cars zipping by on the freeway, airplanes taking off and landing, faces of white people inserted here and there... all the old trappings of "progress" and "internationalization" are crammed in at once. In these films that aim for self-representation, what is really reflected is a sense of crisis that comes from committing yourself to do whatever it takes to cooperate and try to please in this war of "overall economic competitiveness."

"When it comes to marketing cities, when many places are unable to come up with their own style, they just keep falling back on the prefabricated supports of Western brand names," says Lau Sai Leung, the Tom Group's consulting chief editor.

Sometimes, the prestige and authority of Western brand names is astonishing. The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, designed by star architect Frank Gehry, has an irregularly shaped titanium exterior that breaks with traditional forms. In this case, building design in itself is enough to add flavor to an entire city.

Bilbao, which has gained almost mythical status among cities working to revive themselves, is a textbook example in discussions of global urban development. Even more so, cities in Asia with populations over 1 million are striving to follow its example. Among Chinese cities, while discussion in Taiwan has dragged on about "whether we want to spend NT$7.5 billion to get the Guggenheim," Hong Kong and Shanghai have long since made their move, opening their arms to welcome this most famous of cultural franchises. In addition, the Hong Kong Disneyland will open this September, and construction of Shanghai's Disneyland is set for completion in another five years.

Tearing down culture

At the end of 2004, the hotly debated "West Kowloon project" entered a 15-week public consultation period. This development plan for a cultural and entertainment district, which has come under sharp criticism from members of the local arts and culture community, involves not only cultural issues but also a massive land reclamation project. Under the leadership of the Hong Kong government, the plan calls for using a 40-hectare stretch of unused coastal land-the largest in Hong Kong-to build a high-rise of up to 40 stories. Beneath this would be located a cluster of museums that would include four large-scale museums, along with a theater building housing three theaters. Upon seeing the Hong Kong government's sudden and unprecedented interest in cultural institutions and its plans to transform land worth HK$100 billion into an arts and entertainment district, members of the arts and culture community were shocked.

"The developers that were selected think that if we bring in the Guggenheim and the Pompidou, then with the support of these famous international brand names, the level of Hong Kong's culture will suddenly be improved," says Leung Man Tao, founder of Hong Kong's Cattle Depot College (Ngau Pang Sue Yuen).

"Everyone talks about the Bilbao experience, but a city's cultural brand needs to have a deep, rich foundation," says Leung. "If there's no cultural base, then we'll only be able to clone an empty shell."

Faced with the tides of economic development, and in spite of the West Kowloon project and the quickly disappearing traces of the city's history, criticisms by cultural figures have fallen on deaf ears, and the pace of development is continuing unabated.

Even though it is still five years away, Shanghai has already broken ground to prepare for the 2010 World Expo. Exhibits lasting up to half a year are expected to draw 10 million people to Shanghai. To welcome large-scale gatherings, the Shanghai Municipal Government is planning to build an Expo District of up to four square kilometers. Direct investments in demolition, relocation of residents, and new construction will reach US$3 billion.

Determined to spur on cultural development, last year Shenzhen began to systematically plan the output for the city's cultural industry, bringing it under the umbrella of the city's industrial ministries. In addition, Shenzhen also held the city's first cultural industry exposition. In just five days, the exposition brought in 480,000 visitors. Sales from contracts signed and purchases made at the expo for cultural products, service programs, and art products hit RMB28 billion.

Old cities, many stories

Walking into the old districts of Taipei, the crowds passing through the newly rebuilt Chiencheng Circle are thinner than before, yet the nearby Ninghsia Road night market is the same as it was a decade ago. Following the alleyways further in, you can see every family watching television or eating dinner. The lanes and alleys thread their way around to the Confucian Temple and the Pao-an Temple, which was recently awarded a major grant from the United Nations for maintaining historic sites. Travelers from out of town never make it to this quiet corner of the city, yet old Taipei is preserved in this historic site, and shows itself on the faces of the temple's faithful visitors.

Back in Hong Kong, after shopping in Wanchai for imported accessories and clothes, at the corner of Jardine's Crescent and Kai Chiu Road you suddenly find a traditional market sandwiched between two tall buildings, which gives the passerby a sense of joy in suddenly catching a glimpse of Shangri-la. While urban explorers delight in the variety of the city, however, they also learn that this traditional market will soon be torn down, and cannot help but feel a tinge of sadness.

Traveling to youthful Shenzhen with the same explorer's sprit, on Baihua Second Road, visitors see apartment buildings springing up and all varieties of schools in between them. The city's only "book bar" is also here. As people sip on wine or coffee, every night a concert is held at a set time. As a woman's voice interprets the love songs of the male singer Jiang Yuheng, the scene is enough to change stereotypes of Shenzhen as a rough-and-ready place. Walking in Shanghai past the statue of Cai Yuanpei in a park and the one of Alexander Pushkin on Yueyang Road, the visitor seems to be seeing the people of the city; but it is only on walking unknowingly into the Changde Apartments that you see that the world of Eileen Chang, whose stories of 1930s and 1940s Shanghai are famous throughout the Chinese-speaking world, has not yet faded into history.

In an era where the pace of things keeps getting faster, when tourists are packed into airplanes, tour buses, souvenir shops, and five-star hotels, the essence of life in the city, hidden in labyrinthine alleyways, is often passed by unnoticed. Each city seems to look more like the others, and the flavor of life grows more and more distant.

"Ideally, the city's 'labyrinths' and 'pyramids' should be maintained," says Liao Hsien-hao, head of Taipei's Department of Cultural Affairs, quoting the work of French scholar Pierre Bordieu.

Exchange and interaction

Ambition burns hot in the glow of the city's lights. As exchanges grow across the straits and these four cities see one another as competitors, even without a forum for discussion, they still keep their eyes on one another.

In recent years, as China's economic boom has spread from the Pearl River Delta to the Yangtze Delta, cities all over are picking up the pace of construction and changing on an almost daily basis. In terms of cities' style and appearance, however, they have grown to look more like one another, especially in the coastal areas. In the midst of this breakneck demolition and construction, careful observers are worried.

"A city's brand is helpful for a city's development, but there are more than a few examples of failure," says Hua Jian, a researcher at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences and author of a book titled Culture + Innovation = Wealth. According to Hua, "We can't just look at the success stories. There are many examples of countries putting down all kinds of money without success. When we look at Bilbao's experience, we can't forget that the Guggenheim's five other branches have all lost money."

"In working to make great strides to develop quickly, cities in China have become filled with highways and high-rise towers," laments Sun Zhenhua. "Gradually, they are losing the aesthetic feel of traditional cities. Even ancient cities like Beijing and Xi'an have slowly ended up looking the same."

On the other hand, even if they are not used for publicity and advertising, a city's brand and image can help to create a sense of identification among residents. This is especially true in a place like Shenzhen, which has a short history and still holds on to its strong immigrant feel.

Image-making and self-positioning

A city's image design always has a close link to its self-positioning. This is true for Hong Kong, the most international of the four; for Shenzhen, which draws from its youthful energy; for Shanghai, which occupies the largest amount of territory and wields the greatest power; and for Taipei, which seems both refined and to have the most open character.

With its constant international publicity, Hong Kong has been the most active of the four cities, with its tenacious publicity campaigns promoting it as a financial capital, a city of constant activity, and now as "Asia's World City." By comparison, however, Shanghai has been relatively quiet, even though it has the greatest actual strength for development.

"Shanghai's academic world, industry, and public sector have in fact already completed a 'World City' plan to define its orientation," reveals Hua Jian. "But since Shanghai is at the core of 16 cities in the Yangtze Delta, it has to take the entire group of cities into consideration, and this has made it more cautious."

Groups of cities set the direction for an entire country. Areas like New York and Paris have always had a key influence on their countries. As the largest group of cities in China and the sixth largest in the world, the Yangtze Delta-with Shanghai as its main representative-accounts for 20% of China's economy, and its economic growth outstrips other parts of the country by an even greater margin. Compared with the way Shenzhen has been searching for a way to define itself after losing the comparative advantage of its position as a special economic zone, Hong Kong and Taipei have been feeling calmer, even though they have been seeing slow or even negative economic growth.

Setting economics aside, however, it is clear that the cultural exchanges between these four cities are of great significance.

"North America, the older members of the European Union, and newcomers like Japan and South Korea dominate the development of the global cultural industry," says Hua Jian. According to Hua, if all four cities, located as they are in the Chinese-language "corridor" can form a "Chinese-language culture zone," they could produce a new force that could defend their own culture and even create new cultural trends. If this Chinese-language culture zone can indeed be formed, these four cities will certainly be leaders in shaping Chinese culture in the future.

May I ask the lady's name?

In contrast to the cultural development that has taken place in China under strong official guidance, vitality and innovation is everywhere among the people of Taipei, which seems to reflect the importance of freedom and openness to a city's innovative spirit. Only when people's thinking has been liberated will new possibilities and new ways of solving problems emerge. From Taipei's wedding photo studios to its Eslite bookstore, commercial brands make use of Taipei's scenery and keep promoting the city's image.

"With the natural environment as a stage, culture and history as the backdrop, and innovation and handicrafts as the props-with all of these things brought together in an atmosphere of freedom and liberation, the city's cultural and creative industries are really like multimedia production. If the city can achieve this, then it can be sold everywhere, and reap profits everywhere." says Lee Jen-fang. Lee argues that the price for this kind of consumption is never low, but from a marketer's point of view, the high level of psychological satisfaction often makes it difficult for consumers to resist.

What is a city brand? What can a city's brand be built on? Why would a city want to communicate its image and lifestyle? How can a brand have close links to residents' lives? With the rise of the culture industry and the experience economy, drawing out advantages and sprucing up cities are things that have to be done. In the packaging process, people can arrive at an increasingly clear consensus about a city's positioning and vision, providing an orientation for investments of resources and effort. This is how vital, diverse, magnificent cities are born.

As these four cities look at each other and the world, the story is just beginning.

Taipei

Area (square kilometers)271

Population (millions)2.62

Per-capita GDP (US$)13,800

Number of tourists

entering territory (millions) 1.8

Shanghai

Area (square kilometers)6,340

Population (millions)16.7

Per-capita GDP (US$)5,800

Number of tourists

entering territory (millions)2.44

(includes tourists from HK, Macao, and Taiwan)

Shenzhen (including Shenzhen special zone)

Area (square kilometers)1,952

Population (millions)9.64

Per-capita GDP (US$)6,590

Number of tourists

entering territory (millions)4.35

(includes tourists from HK, Macao, and Taiwan)

Hong Kong