In Western China, Steep Highs and Steep Lows

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The high-rises of Chongqing, in western China, are built on hills; it is a city of steep ups and downs.

Everything about it seems large and unwieldy - it is home to nearly 30 million people and sits on the third largest river in the world, the Yangtze. It was a seething hotbed of organized crime during the first decade of the new millennium, and then just as renowned for the efficacy of its ambitious crime-busting officials, notably party secretary Bo Xilai and police chief Wang Lijun.

Bo Xilai fell this year from his vertiginous perch as a contender for the standing committee of China's politburo - expelled from the party and his career in ruins - after Mr. Wang revealed that Mr. Bo's wife had m urdered a British businessman. Mr. Wang was jailed in September for defection and abuse of power.

This sprawling megacity, the locus of scandals and political machinations, has fixed the interest of Tim Franco, a Shanghai-based French photographer. With his ongoing series, “Vertical Communism,” Mr. Franco endeavors to show how the political and cultural forces of the area shape the cityscape and how ordinary people are affected as Chongqing elbows its way into modernity.

For Mr. Franco, Chongqing is a “good representation of what's happening in China in general.” Its growing pains are severe, yet it seems to pass into new phases of development rapidly (it only officially became the single, unified municipality we know today in 1997), and it is one of the sites where China' s leaders sought to resettle the millions displaced by the Three Gorges Dam project.

Mr. Franco, though awed by Chongqing's bustle and brio, was keen to focus on its people. He is conversational in Mandarin and speaks English, French and Polish (though he lamented how few opportunities he has gotten recently to speak Polish). He observed a city with a colorful history that is largely populated by people “definitely not used to living in an urban area,” and he was struck by the swiftness with which new constructions went up, even at the cost of destroying sites of cultural value.

“People are so interested in becoming a modern country, that they don't have a self-consciousness of cultural heritage,” he said. “This is on government level, but I feel like when I speak to the peo ple - it's also at the people level.”

He was told by residents, “ ‘If you look at where I live now, and in one year the government can give me an apartment in a modern building, what do you choose?' ” Mr. Franco recounted. And he was unable to challenge their logic. “If you can choose between a place with barely no electricity and a place with floor heating and air conditioning, I can understand,” he said.

Mr. Franco said that assessing the area's most famous politician can be complicated for residents. Mr. Bo was popular: he rounded up criminals and his deputy had the city's most notorious mob boss tried and executed. He espoused leftist causes and struck a populist tone that resonated with many. Yet his methods were brutal - there were accusations of torture - and his ascent was characterized by swiftness and ruthlessness.

Swiftness certainly describes the pace of change of Chongqing's landscape. Mr. Franco regrets missing an opportunity or two, arriving too late to photograph some of those cultural treasures. Chiang Kai-Shek's residence, for example - dating back to the 1930s when Chiang made Chongqing his provisional capital - was demolished so quickly that he could not get there before it was gone. The demolitions are speedy.

Mr. Franco recognizes that the city is far too complicated to fully capture with a camera, though he does not intend to stop.

Some have asked why he showed the uglier parts of the city, urging him to photograph the more modern parts. And he intends to, though he says there will be plenty of time for that.

“I try to show what the city is becoming, and remember how the city was,” he said. “And in a few years, it will be more importan t to look at this. You always have the modern part.”

Tim Franco People young and old enjoy an afternoon on the banks of the Jialing River, facing the central Yuzhong district of Chongqing.

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