Dude! Where Can I Park My Car in China?
by Rachel Wasser, Beijing, China on 05.18.07
Look at the photo above, and you'll see just a few of China's 11.5 million private cars. (That 2006 number represents a one-third jump from 2005 levels.) Take a closer look, and you should be able to discern cars parked on sidewalks. And if you look really closely, you might be able to pick out cars double-parked on sidewalks, and even the guy whose job it is to direct cars into sidewalk parking "spots." What you won't see is that parking spots, for China's new middle class homeowners, are "one of the many modest causes that have brought a change in the urban mentality - beyond a consciousness of limited legal rights, to a growing awareness of the need for a more active 'civil society' as a balance against arbitrary officialdom." More after the jump. ::Economist.com
We know that China's headlong rush into the automobile era is having awful impacts on air quality and contributing to the world's warming. But it's also one of many factors driving the nation towards a system of increased public participation. Angry housing estate residents are organizing into democratically elected homeowners' associations to defend their parking spots - and other property rights - from the state and developers. The landmark property law passed by the central government in March is responsive to this new middle class and its auto addiction: the law includes principles governing the ownership of parking spaces, and it sides with the not-so-average middle class citizen, requiring developers to make spots available to housing estate residents. With government calling on private citizens to participate in monitoring pollution and environmental quality, and NGOs seeking to get people to participate in improving environmental quality with their purses, we're happy to see some good news about public participation and people defending their property. Even if that property is parking spots. ::Economist.com
Fight for your right to park? ... Please.
Come on, Economist. Evolve already.
http://www.freepublictransit.org
Ugh, that picture brings back bad memories of trying to get home in Boston through clogged roundabouts...
Social scientist perhaps you should look at this in a better light - democratically elected local associations having an effect on China's central government.
Now think about democratically elected local environmental associations having an effect on China's central government. :)
Jesus... that is crowded...
After seeing this picture, I think I'll walk
I guess thats why china contribute most to global warming
lol
---
Note: China is currently the world's #2 greenhouse gas emitter, after the United States. - Rachel
FYI, the layout of this page is really messed up in firefox. screeenshot
---
Thanks, Adam! We're working on this. Really appreciate the comment.
- Rachel
Ok, assuming that there are no hidden traffic lights (all on red), this photo proves that no one has yet taught a Chinese bus-driver, or any other driver, how to use a round about. Check it out, 3 almost totally blocked exits of 4.
Road rage aplenty in China then
The same problem here in Lithuania
1.5 billion people, no clue.
They could have avoided all our dumb mistakes and build a model society based on a far more sustainable model. Instead they insist on repeating every single mistake we ever made, only 10 times worse.
At least they have the good grace to kill about an army's worth of themselves in traffic every year.
---
Acutely aware of local and global costs of rapid economic development - and its own domestic resource shortage - there are many things that China is seeking to do better than Western countries have, including trying to develop a more energy efficient economy and investing in renewables. See ::Journalists, Report! China Urges Media Supervision of Energy Consumption and ::China: Make My Appliance Energy Efficient, Please for some recent coverage on TreeHugger.
China's also increasingly acknowleding issues with the car-driven development model. Take a look at ::China's Cars Come in Green: Dispatch from the Shanghai Auto Show and ::China Goes Car-Free - For A Day for some positive news on China's automotive scene.
Well take the bus if parking is a problem
Get on your bikes... the only energy they burn is calories and that has to be a good thing!
GREAT PIC! lol!!! i dont understand how they have 10 way intersections, that is nuts!
China Auto - Changfeng Motor, Dongfeng, GWM, Changan, Chery, SAIC Roewe
green: at least 10x more buses per car than I've seen in any western city
red: individuals making selfish decisions that mess up society as a whole (eg blocked exits causing this hopefully unusual traffic jam)
if this homeowners rally proves to be a developing trend, it seems a bit of an ominous one, given that some of these organizations will likely behave like bad drivers on a rotary, and force people not fortunate enough to belong to park, well, in the rotary. So that all the lower-class folk on the bus can't get to work. but hey, let freedom ring. If it worked for us, it'll work for them... except that we didn't have a billion people when we started... and we made a hole in the ozone layer... and stuff...
I honestly believe that, before you call out a developing country's car problem, you should solve your own. Why can't we enjoy cars, when you guys have enjoyed them for what, the last 80 years?