Comment 30663

By LL (registered) - website | Posted April 30, 2009 at 17:16:53

China's starting to switch to cars and guess what? Transportation is getting more difficult. As the international press has been reporting, the wealthier Chinese cities are already choked with cars, even though only a minority drive them.

Is this progress? When it's more difficult and costly to get around? When you can't breath the air in your city?

The official embrace of mass motoring by Communist China busts the myth that cars = freedom. China is not a very free place compared to Holland or Denmark, where cycling is growing dramatically.

When I think of progress in transportation, I don't think of mindless speed. I want the utility of travel without the degradation of my surroundings. I want freedom of choice. I want to be able to rent/borrow a car when it suits me (car share co-ops are preferable). I don't want to have car ownership mandated by some totalitarian industrial regime that's reflected in poor urban planning.

I think the embrace of bicycles by northern Europe is precisely because of their technological advanced stage. They recognize the post-fordist reality a little better. In short, they realize the 1950's are over.

LL believes that the problems of the city reflect deeper social contradictions

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