Shanghai's Minhang district

life - Minhang's no.5 metro

Who looks at the metro map in Shanghai sees in the southwest corner a strange looking addition to the No.1 Metro. It is called the No.5 Metro, and runs fully through the district of Minhang.
Districts are very important in deciding about infrastructure in Shanghai and it explains why city-wide systems often work rather strange, or not at all. When subways lines are build districts have a lot of leverage over the construction, partly because they also have to cough up most of the money.
So, that explains why Line no.2 never made it to the two airports in Pudong and Hongqiao, while that originally was the plan. It might still happen, but all depends on the districts.
In Minhang the opposite happened and that government seems to be more forward looking than others. It first paid to get the No.1 line into its districts and later financed also the extention of the line to Xinzhuang. It discovered very fast the investment was worthwhile: the areas along the line blossomed economically, the value of the real estate went up and tax income increased.
So, when it got the change, it started to build the No.5 metro, connecting even more of the district. While in terms of tickets, the systems belongs to the city wide metro system, it looks different in all kinds of ways. Other metro lines all have a color, the No.5 has a rainbow of colors. The people guarding the platforms have also different uniforms: they look a bit like French gendarmes.
Also the part of Minhang surrounding the No.5 Line is doing very well, although there is still room for improvement. But huge building sites, the renovations of older appartments and much industrial activity suggest things are going rather well.