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Why haven't China's cities learned from America's mistakes?

theguardian.com

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Re: Why haven't China's cities learned from America's mistakes?

#51

Post by jpatokal »

crapshoot101 wrote: post #33
nichtich wrote: post #6

I've heard about failed city planning a lot, and I wonder is there a good example somewhere? like a booming city with more than 5 million population that have "good" city plan? which city is best in this regard?

Singapore is perhaps the most efficient city on the planet, albeit at the cost of occasionally feeling a bit "sterile" in some ways.

Hong Kong's a pretty good contender too, and its public transport is arguably even better than Singapore's -- although not long on current trends, as Singapore is going all out to double or triple the existing metro network.

Re: Why haven't China's cities learned from America's mistakes?

#52

Post by seanmcdirmid »

jpatokal wrote: post #50

There's one aspect where China has well and truly learned from America's mistakes: public transport. Every Chinese city of any importance has a metro system that's shiny new and heavily used. In 1993, the Shanghai Metro did not exist; today it's the world's longest, and by some measures the busiest. http://www.urbanrail.net/as/asia.htm http://www.urbanrail.net/as/cn/shan/shanghai.htm

But if you live in the suburbs and are just a car-less diaosi, you have your parents get up at 4am just to reserve a place for you in the bus line so you can make it to work by 8am (this is actually true for many places in Beijing, and some places in SH).

Re: Why haven't China's cities learned from America's mistakes?

#53

Post by seanmcdirmid »

eloisant wrote: post #26
snogglethorpe wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look at Japan, which generally has much looser zoning practices, it's managed to do much, much, better. It has sprawl and excess road construction too, but the sprawl is much more transit-oriented, and Japan has generally done a far better job avoiding the worst stupidities of U.S. post-war development. I'm sure there are many interacting reason for this, e.g. Japan's poverty in the decades after the war meant…

It may also be because in Japan space is very constrained, while China is a huge country with a lot available space - just like US.

Lots of cities are constrained. Many places in China are mostly mountains (they are getting around this by blowing up the mountains).

Re: Why haven't China's cities learned from America's mistakes?

#54

Post by seanmcdirmid »

wesleyy wrote: post #2

I don't think saying China didn't see and learn from the failing aspects of American city planning is fair or useful, especially when it comes to road planning. The Chinese and American culture on road use is completely different: (power/gas) scooters and (regular) bikes are extremely popular in Beijing, and Chinese drivers are generally much more aggressive. Because of this, most road users, including bikers, are ca…

Gas scooters are illegal within the 5th ring road, the police just haven't cracked down recently so many people are getting daring again (it's a cycle).

Beijing bikes don't go very fast, probably because the lanes are all choked by cars, though it was like this in the late 90s also when Beijing still had segregated bike lanes.

Chinese urban planners are just uneducated people who got their jobs via guanxi, especially in a corrupt city like Beijing (Shanghai, Guangzhou are much better, of course).

Re: Why haven't China's cities learned from America's mistakes?

#56

Post by abrowne »

gurkendoktor wrote: post #34
reedlaw wrote: post #24

I live in Hangzhou and they are already addressing these problems. For example, there is a network of public bike stations. To use a bike, you make a 200 yuan deposit on a public transportation card. The first hour bike rental is free. After that it starts at 1 yuan for the second hour and goes up from there. The card also works for buses (a ride costs 2-4 yuan) using your available balance. After riding a bus, the f…

> I live in Hangzhou and they are already addressing these problems. For example, there is a network of public bike stations. Do people use these in your experience? I've noticed them pop up all over Germany and then Taiwan too, but I found it hard to spot anyone but tourists riding public bikes. I always wonder if these are simply prestige projects to impress green-minded citizens (like myself).

They are used a lot in Minneapolis.

Re: Why haven't China's cities learned from America's mistakes?

#57

Post by waps »

martythemaniak wrote: post #21
jlmendezbonini wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>- suburban sprawl has low up-front costs with real costs coming in decades later, as North American suburbs are starting to experience today Would you mind elaborating more on this? More specifically about the cost the North American suburbs are starting to experience. thanks

I am talking primarily about property tax rates, though as siblings have said, there are other effects, like worse health and lifestyle outcomes which are a bit harder to quantify. As the article mentions, suburban municipalities made money primarily by selling land, however the price almost never accounted for the true, high cost of servicing low-density communities. This is usually made much worse by developer lobb…

All these things come down to that everyone should give up most of the things they want, and listen to "what's best".

I've yet to see someone make the point that there are solutions, such as using electric self-driving cars as public transport, will work. Assuming of course, the price can be made low enough.

Maybe I'm a horrible human being, but I have a family, and I want space (incl. a garden), NOT living in a big city, and a car. I do not think this is too much to ask. Solutions (and politics) should focus on how to make that possible, not on how to prevent it.

Re: Why haven't China's cities learned from America's mistakes?

#58

Post by eevilspock »

martythemaniak wrote: post #7

The short, glib answer is "The same reason teenagers don't learn from their elders' mistakes". The longer answer is a combination of: - poor people want what rich people have. And if they can't afford the substance (private country estate), they'll still get the style (McMansion). They particularly want last generation's rich people's things, as this generation's rich people's things are have not gained widespread po…

The even shorter answer is that humans are spacially and temporally myopic.

Our decisions are tend to be highly local, with little thought given to the broader environment, other people, or the future.

Re: Why haven't China's cities learned from America's mistakes?

#59

Post by peatmoss »

waps wrote: post #57
martythemaniak wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am talking primarily about property tax rates, though as siblings have said, there are other effects, like worse health and lifestyle outcomes which are a bit harder to quantify. As the article mentions, suburban municipalities made money primarily by selling land, however the price almost never accounted for the true, high cost of servicing low-density communities. This is usually made much worse by developer lobb…

All these things come down to that everyone should give up most of the things they want, and listen to "what's best". I've yet to see someone make the point that there are solutions, such as using electric self-driving cars as public transport, will work. Assuming of course, the price can be made low enough. Maybe I'm a horrible human being, but I have a family, and I want space (incl. a garden), NOT living in a big…

> All these things come down to that everyone should give up most of the things they want, and listen to "what's best".

I don't think so. The parent was pointing out that suburban living requires a subsidy from elsewhere to support business as usual. This is more a question of equity than of someone imposing their will about some idealized way of living.

> I've yet to see someone make the point that there are solutions, such as using electric self-driving cars as public transport, will work. Assuming of course, the price can be made low enough.

First, transportation is relatively small potatoes compared to the costs of sewer and water systems. The marginal cost of bringing sewer and water to a suburban / exurban home tends to be quite a lot more than the average cost of supplying those services.

Second, I'm a huge proponent of self-driving cars, but they will not solve land use inefficiency. The biggest gains from self-driving cars will be from higher fleet utilization (think car share), and those gains will be best realized in higher density areas. If everyone in the suburbs still has their own car servicing their single-occupant commute, self driving cars really do nothing from an efficiency perspective.

> Maybe I'm a horrible human being, but I have a family, and I want space (incl. a garden), NOT living in a big city, and a car. I do not think this is too much to ask. Solutions (and politics) should focus on how to make that possible, not on how to prevent it.

Nobody has said this, and you're lapsing into victimhood thinking. But here's a couple of other things to keep in mind. First, the US didn't really have a taste for suburbs the way we do now until WWII. And this was very much the result of government planners stepping in and telling people how they should live. We (planners) poured money into a freeway system that in many places primarily displaced minority and poor residents to ferry predominantly middle-class white people from new suburbs, through formerly integral neighborhoods, to central business districts. We (the country by way of our politicians) backed this up with home mortgage lending programs that basically required returning GIs to live a suburban lifestyle.

We already have a solution on how to make widespread suburban living possible--it requires money and energy, just like any other relatively inefficient system. I don't think people who have a taste for it are bad people. However, neither do I think the societal benefits of suburban living are so intrinsically great that we should continue a wealth transfer. Put another way, the externalities of suburban living should be better internalized.

Finally, far be it for curmudgeonly me to suggest to anyone how to raise children, but I'll just point out that the desire to isolate children from society in a suburban enclave is not a value universally shared throughout the world. Here are some young men describing their experiences growing up in the suburbs of Toronto: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYYdQB0mkEU

Re: Why haven't China's cities learned from America's mistakes?

#60

Post by snowwrestler »

waps wrote: post #57
martythemaniak wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am talking primarily about property tax rates, though as siblings have said, there are other effects, like worse health and lifestyle outcomes which are a bit harder to quantify. As the article mentions, suburban municipalities made money primarily by selling land, however the price almost never accounted for the true, high cost of servicing low-density communities. This is usually made much worse by developer lobb…

All these things come down to that everyone should give up most of the things they want, and listen to "what's best". I've yet to see someone make the point that there are solutions, such as using electric self-driving cars as public transport, will work. Assuming of course, the price can be made low enough. Maybe I'm a horrible human being, but I have a family, and I want space (incl. a garden), NOT living in a big…

It's not too much to ask, but there are better and worse ways of getting it. My mom and I live in similar sized houses on similar sized plots of land.

I live in a suburb that is constructed like a small town. The streets are a grid, and there is a "main street" that puts the essentials within walking distance of many of the houses--groceries, restaurants, hardware, even elementary and middle schools--and a few smaller shop areas sprinkled on a few other blocks.

My mom lives in a suburb that was constructed by a suburban developer in the 1970s. The streets are all curved and hierarchical (i.e. connect like branches on a tree), and all the shopping is concentrated in a big strip mall at a major intersection.

The result is that the traffic is far worse for my mom. Everything requires driving, and the street layout extends travel times, while concentrating all drivers into a smaller and smaller set of roads. They also have a worse time in winter. They are totally dependent on plows when it snows; whereas in my neighborhood most folks can walk to a store if they need something.

Edit to add: I can't prove it, but my subjective perception is that average health is lower in my mom's neighborhood, with more fat people. There's no reason to walk besides exercise (i.e. walking in circles just to walk). In my neighborhood it is often more convenient to walk, so people do it a lot more.

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