Shanghai, China

Farmland has been swallowed by skyscrapers and ribbons of freeway unravel across the horizon as Shanghai's frenzied building boom continues.

The Chinese megacity, a center for trade and manufacturing, is now home to an estimated 18 million people.

By 2050 about a billion people will live in China's cities, predicts a new UN report.

In Shanghai, rapid urbanization means that traditional homes and alleyway neighborhoods have vanished, and with them go more than memories. Entire communities have been forcibly relocated, priced out of the city's booming new economy.

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