Project Chronicles Life In Fast-Growing Chinese Cities

Strategic planner Richard Summers of W+K Shanghai visited six cities in China, interviewing the people who live and work in some of the fastest growing places in the country for a project called Boomtown Stories.

The project was inspired by a 2010 study, which identified new Chinese boomtowns that were seeing rapid increases in population, income and infrastructure development. The study named them the CHAMPS – after the cities of Chongqing, Hefei, Anshan, Ma’anshan, Pingdingshan and Shenyang.

The Boomtown Stories project aimed to understand what these changes mean for the people who live in these cities. Summers set out to visit the six cities in twelve days by land and put faces and words to the names and numbers. The thoughts and dreams of the numerous people he met have been collected and shared on a website so you can explore what the residents feel about the changes to their city’s infrastructure, economy and society.

Boomtown Stories