Beijing Roads Headed Toward Maximum Capacity

2,000 New Cars Hit Beijing Streets Everyday

As the government and cultural center of the country, Beijing is a worthy capital of a rising China. The city’s infectious aspirations have led it to become a prime destination for ambitious Chinese from all parts of the country (and foreigners from all parts of the world). Unfortunately, this has not been without consequences to the city’s transportation network.

The massive growth of Beijing has put undue strain on the city’s roads. And though there has been a proliferation of new roads built in and around the city, the construction has not kept pace with the amount of new car owners. Continue reading

China High-Speed Rail Tracks In Trouble?

Photo by Matthew Felix Sun

The South China Morning Post has a worrying article about rail track construction quality for China’s new high-speed train network. The piece posits that the fast pace at which the system is being built means that quality is being sacrificed. Here is a reproduction of the article below: Continue reading

Defining Western Bias

Architecture critic Guy Horton has an excellent essay on ArchDaily about redefining the way we judge and evaluate Chinese urban development.

China’s unique history and special set of circumstances at this time means that Western methods of analyzing urban issues are not sufficient for understanding the entire scope of Chinese development. Horton summarizes his point in the conclusion: Continue reading

Guangzhou’s Inferiority Complex

Guangzhou Opera House. Photo by puikincz

You gotta give Guangzhou some credit. The capital city of Guangdong Province is trying desperately hard to catch up to its first tier city peers in the culture department. The city’s inferiority complex manifested itself most recently in the over-the-top production of the 2010 Asian Games – an event reminiscent of the 2008 Beijing Olympics but hardly as noteworthy.

Now Guangzhou is looking to capture the spotlight once again with a spectacular opera house designed by Zaha Hadid, set to open to the public in February. This isn’t the first time striking architecture by a world-famous designer has been used to raise the profile of a city. Continue reading

City Journal’s Guy Sorman: China Basher

Beijing’s 798 Arts District

While browsing through the front page of the planning website Planetizen the other day, I came across a link to a story from the autumn issue of City Journal titled ‘Asian Megacities, Free and Unfree‘. City Journal, published by the Manhattan Institute, is one of my favorite publications about urban issues, and usually produces well-reasoned, thought-provoking pieces. And given the topic of this piece, I was excited to read what I thought would be a compelling article about the rise of Asian cities.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. Continue reading