By Frank Yu
All over Beijing, construction and destruction is in the air, on the street, and even in the canals and manmade lakes that dot the city. Hutongs go down and a new office complex or residential high rise goes up. Preparation for the Beijing Olympics has begun and some of the biggest names in architecture will soon be in Beijing to transform the capitol's skyline and pop its architectural ranking upwards in the world. It's a frenzy of old and new technologies meeting, with the former dying away.

In the August edition of Wired magazine, Rem Koolhaas, architect extraordinaire, launches a short manifesto of why Beijing will be the architectural showcase for the world in the next few years. One of his premises sort of says it all, "It (meaning China) could use its dominant position, the force of its numbers, its economic power, and its central government to lead the world into a digital future." For Koolhaas, the 21st century may well see the return of China after 600-800 years as the technological center of the world.

The Chinese government and hordes of city planners all over China probably feel the same way. Beijing has embarked on transforming itself not just as the cultural and political capitol of China, but the technological hub of the country as well by drawing up the resources of its universities and the city's talent pool of the brightest and best in China. The question is "can any city transform itself into a technology research center simply by building new facilities?"

Most people will agree that its more than just buildings that creates the recipe for creating a world class technological hub, it involves getting the right kind of people that fuel the engine of creativity to actually move and stay in Beijing that will determine if the city can truly be another silicon valley or in more grittier terms, an alternate Bangalore. The tricky thing is that the right type of people are not just the scientists, programmers, and researchers that would be the frontline of technological innovation but also the artists, the poets, the entertainers and the thinkers that would both attract them to stay and later inspire them. The fun factor is the secret ingredient that makes technology cities hum.

This little revelation is an issue that the city-state of Singapore has been grappling with for years. Singapore has invested millions of dollars into building world class research facilities and technology centers but still faces a major hurdle, the problem is that many of the most innovative minds in technology do not want to live in Singapore or at least stay there for the long term due to the lack of fun.

Even the city's attempt to send its best and brightest abroad ends up with many of the Singapore's best and brightest living abroad and just visiting mum and dad in Singapore for the holidays. Singapore then tried to attract foreign talent with all sort of incentives like low taxes, modern facilities, safety, comfort, housing and fast track residency status. Recently, Singapore has tried to make itself over as a place for fun and creativity to attract those FTs (foreign talent) by building the Esplanade (yes, we can be wild and crazy too) cultural center and even allowing pre-approved registered street musicians with permits to perform on public streets. They have also relaxed bar curfew hours as well as legalized bar top dancing. You can even buy chewing gum again if you have a doctor's prescription showing medical need. All this effort is made just to get the talent to come AND stay in Singapore.

One of the primary writers describing this strong symbiotic relationship between artist and techies is Richard Florida in his book "The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It's Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life." He refers to this class of scientist, artist, managers, financiers and even lawyers as the creative class. People whose primary tool and talent are their minds and their ability to create and innovate comprise this modern class of workers that looks for fun and stimulating places to live and work. He cites cities such as Seattle, Boston and San Francisco in the US as examples of cities where technology thrives because the creative class has chosen to live and work there and which further attracts more like-minded people. Cold sterile research centers and ultra modern office complexes may be where the creative class works but when they go home to their family and friends, they want to have fun.

Beijing already has many of the ingredients for transforming itself into a major technological hub and creative class magnet.

First, Beijing is a huge university town which attracts the best students and educators from all over China, not just in the field of technology but also the arts and humanities. The top university in technology and liberal arts, Beijing and Tsinghua University are both in Beijing (Haidian to be more exact) about 100 meters apart. Most if not all technology hubs in the US were more or less extended campuses of a major research university close to their area. Universities not only provide students but funding and facilities as well. Beijing has all this and more.

Second, Beijing already attracts foreign talent and artists because it is an exciting and dynamic place to be locked into both the old and the new. Foreigners from all over the world are coming to Beijing to live, learn mandarin or just slack in the relatively low cost environment of a city in flux. There is always something to do in Beijing and depending on how "local" your idea of fun is, it can be done cheaply.

Third, Beijing continues to be a cultural center of traditional arts as well as the cutting edge. Beijing's avante garde scene continues to shock and even stimulate the rest of China and now the world. Even punk rock, which has died a slow death in most of the world, continues to thrive in Mandarin in Beijing. Movies, animation, videogames and music will continue to stream forth from Beijing in the near future.

Even with all this going for it, Beijing has made an attempt to remake itself into so said technological hub and center but fails to regard the charm and chaos of the cultural and creative side of what makes Beijing attractive and fun to the foreign and local creative class. Beijing in its drive to make itself cleaner, more modern and more glitzier may inadvertently change the mixture of what makes it so appealing in the first place. Ancient centuries old hutongs make way for shabby boxlike high rises. Even converted artistic centers like 798 in the Dashanzi art district which was formerly a military rocket factory may be demolished to make way for another technology office park.

Urban planners in China sometimes fail to see that some of the elements of Old Beijing is what defines the culture and life of the city. As the Chinese creative class emerges with the freedom to choose where they want to work, this group may opt, like many Americans and Europeans before them, to choose lifestyle and quality of life as major factors in where they choose to live and raise their families. Yes, Beijing and even China in general has to modernize and build up its infrastructure to become a technology vanguard. However, the cultural and creative side of the city goes hand in hand with that as well and serves as the kindling for creating the bonfire of innovation that Beijing wants to be.

About the author:
Frank Yu is a Program Manager at Microsoft Research Asia's Advanced Technology Center. A Harvard graduate, Frank has worked in Hong Kong, Singapore and now Beijing for 8 years in the field of technology and banking. Views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not those of Microsoft Corporation. Frank can be contacted at [email protected]