pollution is bad. It was my least favorite thing about living there. However, I will say that the pictures in the link you posted do not represent typical days or average days in Shanghai. We did have one day (during the 3+ years I lived there) that was truly awful, apocalyptic even. That's probably when many of those pictures were taken, if I had to guess. I almost went to the airport to put my family on a plane a to fly somewhere else that day. We gave out facemasks to everyone at work and closed the office early that day.

Compared to other large Chinese cities (like Beijing, Chongqing, Guangzhou, even Hong Kong) pollution in Shanghai actually isn't too bad -- although this is very relative.