Looking out from shabby, crowded homes, views of the Oriental Pearl TV Tower and flashing neon lights across the Huangpu River — that was the everyday reality for many people living in downtown Shanghai decades ago.

Since the 1950s, the city government has launched rounds of campaigns to improve living conditions for its residents, from replacing shantytowns with modern apartment buildings, to the ambitious move in the early 1990s to renovate 3.65 million square meters of low-quality housing. The emergence of a private housing market helped with providing the foundations for high-rise apartment buildings to be erected across the city.

Here are 18 photos showing the process of urban renewal in Shanghai.