Modern Shanghai The Tilanqiao Urban Studies

Before modern time, Tilanqiao was a traditional fishing-hamlet beside Huangpu River. After Shanghai's opening-up, it began to transfer to a modern downtown with the advancing of urbanization. Compared to other districts of Shanghai, the urbanization of Tilanqiao has presented two characters. First, this district become more and more famous for the role of dock, as foreign capitals was invested in docks and ship-building factories in succession by Huangpu River for its advantages of geographic conditions. It developed into an important shipping-center of Shanghai after the American settlement was set up in 1848, and native and foreign owned docks were successively built and betook. Relying on docks and shipping, foreign invested ship-building factories and small native hardware and machinery enterprises adhered to the foreign capitals arose up there. Tilanqiao district has become one of the important seedbed and highlight of native industries. Second, this district focused on docks and small industries, and developed low-level commerce. Therefore, it gradually fell into a"laggard corner"in the prosperous concession areas. With the set up of the awesome"First Jail in Far-east"by the common settlement, the image of Tilanqiao was even more deteriorated. But it rendered the Jewish refugees exiled by Nazi tyranny a space of survival as their"Noah's ark"for its low level of life spending.This dissertation makes a study on Tilanqiao district. It starts with analyzing on the transition of this district from a traditional society to a modern district in a big city, and tries to exhibit its original appearance and find out the ties between different intrinsic elements that impacted on this district's development. It aims to illuminate historical reasons of contemporary Tilanqiao's status quo and hopes to give some references for Tilanqiao's future development.