| Shanghai slim,
Encouraging massive car ownership in any Chinese city isn't very well thought-out policy (at least while they are fossil-fuel based). North America has long been struggling with horrible congestion, sprawl and environmental impact issues. Of course, the short-sightedness of our public officials leads only to the expansion of the road network, which in turns means yet more cars, sprawl, and pollution. I think the big question in China is whether automobile ownership will ever reach similar levels. The economic benefits of a growing automobile industry will be quickly overshadowed by transportation gridlock and major pollution issues. Oil consumption is a whole other story all together. Unfortunately, there is not much leadership coming from anywhere in the world right now in terms of an alternative fuel/transportation revolution. China's population density makes issues like these come to a head light years ahead of countries like Canada, whose sparsely populated expanse lets us get away with a pretty wasterful and irresponsible lifestyle. The most common response I get to this sort of thinking is "well, your countries did it, so why can't we?" I think this is just a dangerous lack of creativity. As China develops in the 21st century, I think it has the chance to lead in innovative urbanization and transportation (the huge population will make this a necessity). In 2004, why bother copying all the stupid mistakes made in North America decades ago? There are different ways to be "modern", and hopefully China can show us that. |
34226 RMB for a Car Plate in May