Chongqing in photos
My photo-walking experience in the amazing Chinese industrial megacity — Chongqing.
Urban jungle of China
Chongqing is photogenic, wild, urban, futuristic and intriguing city on the shores of Yangtze and Jialing rivers in Southwest China. It seems Chongqing is naturally built for street photography.
Chongqing combines an ultra-modern megacity with post-apocalyptic urban landscapes straight out of Blade Runner. First, downtown Chongqing is located on a hilly peninsula with over 100 skyscrapers, making it one of most densely built cityscapes on the planet. Hills add another dimension — if you build up from a valley, 20th floor may be ground level. And for lower floors sometimes it means that there’s no way to see any sunlight. So I guess light must be a driver for real estate value and building up is best way to ensure the apartment will still have sunlight in 10 years.
It seems there are about 3–4 levels of the city — the higher up, the more sunlight, the better. Top levels are occupied by expensive condos, luxury hotels while lower levels are residential districts for working class.
Some areas downhill is the dark-side. It is home to parking lots, abandoned buildings and streets where sun never shines. It may seem like a war zone, since nobody seem to clean up garbage there. I would however restrain from using a word ‘depressive’ as I actually find the city exceptionally, yes, grotesquely, but still — beautiful. Even the darker parts of it.
I can see how living in some parts of Chongqing city may not be exactly up to modern middle class standard. But it also seems that upwards mobility happens on pretty high speed. It is a city of opportunity.
There's a lot of underworld photo treasures waiting to be discovered.
Chongqing's transportation network is built for scale. When we landed in Chongqing airport it seemed empty, or more precisely — built for more people it needs to handle. There may be a good reason — WTTC reports that Chongqing's tourism industry is fastest growing in the world, in fact 6 out of top 10 cities with fastest growing tourism are located in China. High speed railway, cheap airlines and superb local public transportation makes travelling in China, if not straight forward, then very accessible.
You may still notice the travelling is primarily designed for domestic consumption, international credit cards will likely be not accepted even in otherwise modern train stations. And most payments in restaurants and even with street vendors are handled with Alipay and Wepay, payment systems hard to use if you don't have a Chinese bank account.
Flying cars would fit right in! Chongqing city does remind of Blade Runner or the Fifth Element, but it may also be a great example of how future cities may be constructed. With land becoming more and more scarce cities are built in levels. And as in sci-fi movies, deeper levels are reserved for underworld. School of functional design teaches that things which are purely functional and serves the purpose — cannot be ugly. Which makes Chongqing crazily exciting material for street photography.
People of Chongqing
Eight million people live in Chongqing city, while broader metropolitan area is home to over thirty millions — about 3.5 times that of London. Street life is vivid and very real. While Chongqing have a fading reputation of once being criminal and unsafe, it actually feels absolutely safe. It is also very walkable, if you don't mind large crowds and little chaotic traffic. Neighbouring Sichuan, Chongqing offers some of most delicious and spicy street foods and variety of snack streets & restaurants would please any foodie.
People are everywhere and street feels as extension of social life. Something we have forgot in so many cities. Despite rather chilling December weather street vendors, gamblers, neighbours and young families would hang out near apartment building or in public parks, squares and sidewalks.
Even services as ear cleaning is openly available, right next to a metro station.
Chongqing is surprisingly liveable
Don’t let my post-apocalyptic images offset you too much. Chongqing has vivid downtown, museums, concert halls, all the brand stores you may imagine and it is very liveable. With a bunch of hipster coffee shops, exceptionally amazing food and good transportation network, Chongqing city is well suited for digital nomads. And just an hour or two outside of city you can see some amazing nature spots. Given Chongqing's explosive growth it is one of global cities to watch for the decades to come.
Conclusion — Chongqing is beautiful, wild, unique and intriguing. It is an intersection of past and future and a great picture of modern China. We had a wonderful time there!
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Photography by Uldis Leiterts, all rights reserved, for use contact me in Medium — @Uldis
