26 mins, 2007
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This film profiles two cities - one in China, one in Brazil - with very different tales to tell.
CHONGQING, CHINA: Chongqing in China is already the largest city in the world and it's growing at a rate that beggars belief. Migrant workers flood in from the countryside and skyscrapers spring up. But what is the cost of rapid industrialisation?
THE BANGBANG MAN: The film follows a day in the life of the city and the people who work in it. Yu Lebo is one of the army of "bangbang" men who carry goods about the city. He gets 20 pence for an hour of backbreaking work.
THE BUILDER: Every day the migrant builders complete 70,000 square metres of new floor space. One of them is Chen Li who reckons he has worked on 70 to 80 tower blocks in the last nine years. "The buildings are getting taller and better," he says.
THE WINDOW CLEANER: Li Zhiguan was once a farmer - now he hangs off the edge of the huge skyscrapers cleaning windows. It's dangerous work. He should have a glorious view of the city - except the buildings are shrouded in pollution.
THE INDUSTRIALIST: Chongqing is famous for its motorcycle industry - now it's expanding into cars. Yin Mingshan is one of the industrialists who are transforming China. He opened his first company in 1992 with nine staff. He now employs 9,000 workers.
THE PROBLEMS: But as well as air pollution, there are big problems with sewage and waste disposal. Cultural development is falling behind as the forces of globalisation transform the city.
CURITIBA, BRAZIL: Curitiba is a city in a developing country, too - but people actually like living there. It claims to have created a better environment and quality of life than in much of the "first world". How?
CARS V PEOPLE: It all started with one man and a simple idea - prioritising people over cars. Jaime Lerner became mayor in the early '70s. Instead of demolishing buildings to cope with increased traffic, he paved the street and closed it to traffic, creating Brazil's first pedestrian mall.
PUBLIC TRANSPORT: Lerner transformed the city's public transport system with new traffic paths, bus-only lanes, triple articulated buses to carry more passengers, and glass tubes to speed up the boarding process. "We started with 25,000 passengers a day and now we are transporting more than 2 million passengers" says Lerner.
PARKS: Another crucial element in the city's success story is its extensive network of parks which ring the city. Previously unusable land has been turned into parks giving citizens above average access to green space.
SLUMS: But there is a major problem confronting all Brazilian cities, including Curitiba - the slums. Lerner started a scheme in which slum-dwellers clean up the areas where they live and are given food for the rubbish they collect. The city also offers residents low interest mortgages to live in newly built suburbs.
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