This was an exhilarating change! After a decade or more of large-scale restructuring and construction since the 1990s, Shanghai, this one-hundred-year-old, seriously aging and overloaded city, began to re-emerge as a modern international metropolis. It was completely transformed.

Those ten or so years saw the establishment of the central area transportation network. The elevated road network and three north-south and three east-west main roads form the framework, the core is represented by an urban high-speed transport network with expressways and main roads and an express transport network radiating around the Yangtze River Delta, together with the "cross and semi-circle" railway network consisting of Subway Line 1, plus the first phases of Subway Line 2 and Urban Railway Line 3. Completion of the renovation of Hongqiao International Airport and of the first phase of Shanghai Pudong International Airport Project have made Shanghai the first city in China to have two international airports and an annual handling capacity of 32 million passengers. Shanghai's traffic problems are much improved; a comprehensive municipal transportation system appropriate for a modern international metropolis has taken shape.
  
 For a decade or more, Shanghai has strived to increase investment in housing construction whilst continuously expanding financing channels. A breakthrough was made in the reconstruction of the Old City. In the new century, Shanghai continues to increase the building of new homes; by the end of 2004, average living space in central Shanghai had increased to 14.8 sq m per capita, apartments representing 92.5 percent of all accommodation compared with 31.6 percent in 1990. Shanghai's age-old problem of crowded living space was basically solved and people's lives were greatly improved.
   
Over the last decade, especially after 1998, in line with the shift towards equal emphasis on construction and management in large scale urban redevelopment, the reconstruction of old Shanghai began to enter a new, environment-focused phase. The "Three-year (1998-2000) Target" for urban management and environmental construction and the first (2000-2002) cycle of the "Three-year Action Plans" for environmental protection and construction were implemented successively. In 2003, a new cycle of the environmental protection and construction "Three-year Action Plans" was started, to exert strict control over sources of urban pollution, to protect and control urban water resources and the water environment, to construct urban greenbelt, to protect the ecology and establish city landscapes. The construction of the urban greenbelt has been the most successful; the average public greenbelt area per capita in the central area increased from 2.41 sq m in 1997 to 10 sq m by the end of 2004, and afforestation rose from 17 percent to 36 percent. A group of ecological scenic green areas has been established as city landmarks, including Square Park, Huangxing Park, Taiping Bridge Green Area, Xujiahui Park, Kaiqiao Green Area, Huashan Green Area, Daning Lingshi Park and the large public Yan'an Street Central Green Area. Urban ecology and air quality have also greatly improved. The number of days when air quality reached Grade 2 or better has been increasing every year. Nowadays, Shanghai has become one of the most livable cities in China and the world.
   
During this period, the pace of telecommunications and information construction accelerated. Since the 1990s, the construction of telecommunications and information ports was listed as one of the main municipal infrastructure projects. By the end of 2004, the total capacity of telephone exchanges had reached 9.12 million. The number of fixed line users was 8.68 million and that of mobile phone users 13.06 million. The key information port project including high broadband, high speed and complete functions was completed as well as other important projects such the intensive information line, broadband IP Metropolitan Area Network, Unicom data network, double-track reconstruction of the cable TV network and the broadband information exchange center. Also completed were the world's largest regional cable TV network with more than three million users, and the reconstruction of a double-track access network with over one million users, bringing broadband penetration in the urban area to 95 percent. Meanwhile, computer, Internet and communications technologies have been widely used in Shanghai's urban construction and management. Substantial achievements have been made in some "Ecard" projects, including bank IC cards, public transport cards and social insurance cards. Since the 1990s, Shanghai made huge strides forward in the field of IT.
   
Shanghai's development since the 1990s has been the stuff of fiction. Over 100 million sq m of buildings and over 2,000 skyscrapers rose from the ground; huge swathes of shanties and alleyways disappeared; international airports, city subways, cross-river bridges, cross-river tunnels, elevated loop lines and light railways have gone up one by one; there is universal access to water, electricity, coal and gas; the Bund financial street was restored; Nanjing and Huaihai shopping streets and Xujiahui commercial zone were reconstructed: shikumen tenements at Xintiandi were restored and refurbished: the Hongqiao advanced business community was set up; international communities such as Gubei global village were established.., in short whatever way you look at it. everything that happened to old Shanghai during these years was amazing.