What is clear is that the ‘creative class’ (a phrase which conjures up Leninism without the politics) is drawn to districts or cities that have a strong cultural ecology. Can Unicorn Island deliver this? Architecturally, Zaha Hadid Architects is reimagining what counts as public space in many of its China buildings. The model, though, is not the European piazza, which Richard Rogers used for the space outside Paris’ Pompidou. The Zaha Hadid Tianfu buildings have public spaces inside the buildings – as well as on roof terraces.

In the end architects, however imaginative and determined, can do only so much. There needs to be the human software as well as hardware. Zaha Hadid Architects built an impressive museum/performing space in Changsha (a city south of Wuhan). But there seem to be issues. The museum, but not the adjacent performing spaces, remains closed until June 2022. The given explanation is Covid – but if so, why are the theatres still open? Museums are expensive businesses – and it may be that the municipality has not been able to afford to give the museum the necessary funds to develop a programme in keeping with the architectural ambitions. A not unusual story. As Nick Serota, the former Director of Tate once said, it is much easier to build a museum than to run it. The strength of the Chengdu museum projects is that the drivers are businesses and won’t expect subsidy (but they may expect the museums to break even). It’s a paradox that business developments in China may enjoy a better chance presently of developing a thriving cultural ecology than an avowedly self-standing cultural space.

If Chengdu is spreading culturally south, the east of the city over the last three or four years has been developed as a health and sport hub (the UK has a ‘Department of Digital, Culture, Media & Sport’ so there is no reason sport should not occasionally feature here). There are 40+ high tech sporting venues and facilities, one of the aims of which is to host international sports events. Next year, the World Summer University Games and in 2023 Chengdu will be one of the hosts of the AFC Asian Cup, where Asian Football teams compete. A few years ago, as Scott Draper, a TV presenter in China told us, Chengdu was given the moniker ‘The Park City under the Snow Mountains’ (雪山下的公园城市) – and the recently developed sports facilities, together with the proximity of’ ski resorts in the ‘Oriental Alps’, will enable Chengdu, or so goes the hope, to maintain its distinctive age-old identity as China’s most liveable city. (Unicorn Island is also trumpeting its green potential – ‘a car-less area easily navigated by foot or bike’.) With sport such a driver for design, fashion and digital technologies, perhaps this new hub will also become a beacon for creative industries. But the sports facilities in the east of the city are also an encouragement and opportunity for local residents to develop healthy lifestyles – something key to China as its population ages. Those behind the 2012 London Olympics Games claimed that the ‘legacy’ sports facilities would galvanise local people to develop healthier lifestyles. It has been a lamentable failure in this regard. It is always easier to build hardware than to shape human habits.