
When Portugal returned its colony Macao to China in 1999, coffee shop owner Daniel Chao was a first grader living in a different world.
Since then his sleepy hometown has transformed into a bustling gaming hub lined with glittering casinos. Its once quiet streets are now jammed with tourist buses. But the growing wealth of the city dubbed the “Las Vegas of the East” has not brought qualities of sustainable development such as economic diversity and high civic participation.