How China made Manchesterism (opens in new tab)

Walk with me through a fragment of Manchester. Let’s start on Corporation Street, where the 19th-century pomp of Victoria Station abuts an outcrop of high rises. To be fair, I had to use my imagination for some of them. Many are finished, all glass and steel, but others are mere holes in the ground and on the landscape. From the reports and brochures, I’d expected something a bit more, well, built. Instead, it all looks rather ragged, unfinished, like it might become something eventually. One...