Sixty-two-year-old Geng Yueqin and her son's family moved to Anting's new town a year ago, after paying 1 million yuan (HK$1.1 million) for a new 160 square metre flat situated about 20 minutes' drive from the old town and an hour from central Shanghai. The extended family was lured by the fresh air, spacious living and proximity to the son's place of work, the Volkswagen car factory.
An added attraction was the new town's German-style architecture, which set it apart from the surrounding developments and, it was thought, would make it a magnet for the well heeled. Stylish or not, the town, which was projected to attract 30,000 people, has fallen so far short of that figure that the only kindergarten has been forced to delay admissions.
One year on, Ms Geng is shifting again. The retired car worker plans to move her granddaughter Liu Siye's hukou, or household registration, back to Anting old town, in the northwestern part of Shanghai bordering the province of Jiangsu, where she owns a flat. The plan would allow Siye to go to kindergarten in September.
'Fortunately I didn't sell the old apartment; otherwise, I would not be able to move my granddaughter's hukou back to the old town,' Ms Geng said. 'Then she would be unable to go to school. In China, we need hukou for everything.'
Anting is just one piece of the urbanisation jigsaw puzzle in the Shanghai city government's plans to house high-income residents and expats. It is part of the 'One City, Nine Towns' project, an idea officials conceived in the 1990s when they adopted the strategy of satellite towns for residential planning. 'One City' refers to the larger Songjiang, home to an industrial park and a university town.
To make the 'Nine Towns' attractive, a theme concept was adopted. Each town would have its own architecture and planning theme, inspired by the western traditions that had played a pivotal role in Shanghai's development. For those who feel like living in an ersatz Cambridge, there is a British town in Songjiang. There's also a Dutch settlement in Gaoqiao, the German corner in Anting and two American towns in Fenjing and Zhoupu.