Huang Doudou, the artistic director and principal dancer of the Shanghai Song and Dance Ensemble.

Perhaps no other city in China is as blessed as Shanghai. The most vibrant and cosmopolitan city on the Chinese mainland, it is the indisputable leader in both economic development and cultural innovation.

With style, flair and an attitude peppered with a trace of defiance, Shanghai is a hotbed for businesses and finance, as well as a source of inspiration for artistic creation, attracting high-profile businessmen and renowned artists and celebrities. The city is home to those Chinese who see it as a paradise for the fulfilment of their dreams, as well as a rapidly expanding group of expatriates coming to work and live here.

Vincent Lo, the Hong Kong tycoon who helped build Xintiandi, Shanghai's new landmark district.

Nor are Westerners likely to feel too much like outsiders. Look at The Bund, the city's most famous waterfront boulevard, lined with Art Deco buildings and a new redevelopment project like Xintiandi. Westerners and Easterners find their respective cultural elements in perfect fusion here. For artists and businessmen alike, this means that a proper balance between tradition and modernity is the key to understanding the character of the city.

Few people know the modern Shanghai better than Vincent Lo, the Hong Kong tycoon who helped shape the trend and built Xintiandi, the enclave that defines the chic and the cool. Xintiandi, which means "new heaven and earth", is the jet-set's Disneyland.

This hot district of clubs, restaurants and boutiques has become the city's new landmark with its impeccable blend of cultural elements from East and West, past and present.

Lo, chairman of Shui On Group which developed the project in 1997, says his purpose was to preserve the history and architecture of Shanghai and at the same time create elements of a modern lifestyle.

The artistic fusion, which turned out to be a hot spot for bourgeoisie splendor, is imbued with the city's historical and cultural legacies as over half of Shanghai people have one time or another lived in stone gate housing, according to Lo.