In March 2011, Shanghai is hosting the 4th Annual Ultra-High-rise Building Summit -- which extols the merits of high-rise construction.

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"We are on the cusp, really, of that full-speed rebuild, " he said from the high-rise city council building near the downtown disaster area.

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"It's not cheap, but the location is good, " she says of the apartment in a high-rise building in a residential district north of the Shanghai Bund.

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Professor Stead said a sense of community had been destroyed by factors such as the decline of pubs and churches, and the building of high-rise flats.

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Once a potent symbol of American frustration with the Vietnam War, the prison is now a tourist attraction, in the shadow of an upscale high-rise building owned by a Singapore businessman.

CNN: 'Hanoi Hilton' now holds only painful memories

In a long shuttered, 19th-century building said to have been the first high-rise in New York City, the designers displayed a restrained color palette of white, black and subtle pastels that included mint and peach.

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The building uses traditional Chinese window-lattices up its high-rise facade, and is topped with a tiled pagoda-like roof.

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Is it my imagination or did the rise of expense-account restaurants purposely building-in conversation-evaporating high-volume noise levels (partly by not building in the architectural elements that muffle them) coincide with the market run-up to 2008?

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