After moving to Shanghai in 2000, Canadian photographer Greg Girard witnessed firsthand the swiftness in which the city shifted from makeshift, crumbling neighborhoods to a bustling hub of economic reform and major development. Intent on capturing these so-called "ghosts" of the Shanghai of yesteryear before they got completely demolished, the expat spent the last eight years photographing both the doomed architecture in juxtaposition with the new "skyscrapers, residential towers, and squeaky clean developments," as well as its effect on the city's poor. "One of the things I wanted to look at was not simply the contrast between what was disappearing and what was arriving but rather something perhaps not immediately apparent, and that was the way the city's period architecture had been used in ways never intended," explains Girard. "Single-family houses and apartments had been reconfigured to accommodate many more people than they were originally built for."
· 18 Photos Of Old Shanghai Being Demolished To Make Way For Modernization [Business Insider]
· Interview: Greg Girard [Fototazo]