Nathan Mhyrvold on Shanghai: "How real is this?"

Mhyrvold, former CTO at Microsoft and otherwise supposedly all 'round brilliant guy writes about his impressions of Shanghai (Freakonomics) and questions how sustainable its growth is. My first impressions weren't dissimilar in thinking that Shanghai felt artificial. Southern China feels more "real"/comfortable by comparison - and Guangzhou, in particular, as a city.