China's Development Landscape

As a transportation planner, I am not too well-versed in the world of residential or commercial construction. I focus more on how people get from home to work, than the buildings that contain one's home or work.

However, since coming to China, it's almost impossible to ignore the construction bonanza that's going on here. The cranes are everywhere. Some projects seem reasonable, while others seem completely over the top. Furthermore, the break-neck pace at which all the development is happening raises some significant concerns about environmental impact, safety, and economic repercussions.

The cranes are everywhere!

Environmentally, China does have a green building standard, overseen by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development. Here's a great (sort of wonky) blog post comparing the China standards to the US Green Building Council's LEED standards. The standards are not mandatory (neither are the LEED standards) so the impact is necessarily limited, and dictated largely by demand. I don't have enough access or exposure to the process of construction to make sweeping claims about environmental impact, but from a pollution standpoint, I can't imagine it's helping the recent sky-high rates of particulate matter.

A Weekend in Chengdu

As you may remember, a few weeks back, our friend Carlos came to visit from Chengdu. This past weekend, Lucia and I repaid the favor, heading west after work on Friday.

While we weren't there for very long, we managed to see a lot of the city and get a taste for the differences between Chongqing and Chengdu. For one, Chengdu has a significantly larger population of foreigners, which results in more bars and fewer stares. It also caters to tourists more than Chongqing, perhaps because of the famous Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. Here's a blog post someone else wrote that sums up the differences in character pretty well: Chongqing is chaos, Chengdu is chill. (In a google search for "Chongqing versus Chengdu" I turned up this article as well, in case you're interested in starting a company and basing it in either Chengdu or Chongqing.)

The Chengdu train at Chongqing station. 

The crowd exiting at Chengdu. 

When we arrived, we met up with Carlos and hit a few popular foreigner nightlife spots with some people from our hostel - The Shamrock, Helen's, and Jellyfish. My camera takes terrible nighttime pictures so I didn't capture much.

(Academic) News Roundup: Pedestrian Safety, Traffic Collisions and Data

Some of the work I'm doing at the China Academy of Urban Planning and Design revolves around pedestrian safety. I've been involved in the field of pedestrian safety in one way or another for over four years, now, and whenever I travel I am the annoying person stopping to take pictures of crosswalks and traffic signs. Needless to say, China is by far the craziest place I've ever had to think about pedestrian safety.

I'll put together a longer post with lots of photos of my observations in Chongqing, but in the mean time, here are some scary/illuminating articles and posts about the pedestrian safety situation in China. Some are super academic; others are more reader-friendly. If you find the subject of traffic collisions upsetting or boring, feel free to skip this post.

First, the problem of traffic-related deaths as an increasing phenomenon in China: The Lancet recently published an all-China issue with a wide range of global health issues. Here's their article summarizing the findings from the 2010 Global Burden of Disease study (registration required), some of which relates to the relative importance of traffic injuries compared to other causes of death. This blog post nicely reflects on the Lancet article's findings, pointing out how death from traffic injuries has jumped from 10th to 4th and discussing why it isn't just because China is doing a better job of controlling diseases that used to be ranked higher. This article, from the World Health Organization, points out the effect of increasing traffic fatalities on urban mortality rates, in particular.

Second, the more pervasive problem of data collection. How do you know if the changes you're making have any effect on safety if your data is not accurate? The debate over pedestrian crash data in China rages on: the police data, which is used by the government for official reporting, does not match the death registry data, which places the figure at twice the number of deaths from injury related to traffic collisions. Here's a super academic WHO article discussing this problem. The WSJ presents one possible explanation here, that the discrepancy exists because of differences in record-keeping and methodology. This article, also through Lancet, suggests a different explanation part-way through: 

"The inaccuracies may be due, in part, to deliberate under-reporting by traffic officers, who are rewarded with a higher performance ranking if fewer accidents occur within their jurisdictions." 

Finally, some work has been done to analyze the traffic collision data. This article does a good job of identifying some overall trends, while this article is a bit gnarlier, comparing the intricacies of pedestrian crashes in Changsha, China and Hannover, Germany, including a section entitled "Analysis of Injury Severity by Body Regions."

As a personal anecdote, I asked for pedestrian crash data on day 2 of my internship, and have continued to press for it, to no avail. To be fair, in the US, data continues to be a challenge in almost every aspect of urban planning, as well. Recently, movements like Code for America have helped launch the idea of using data for urban planning into the forefront of the profession, and I think it's only going to get better over time. I'm not sure whether China is there, yet.

ChaoTianMen, an Evening Boat Ride, and Chongqing's Cable Car

This weekend, our friend and classmate, Carlos, visited Lucia and I here in Chongqing. He's living in Chengdu for the summer, working at the Chengdu Institute of Urban Planning and Design. Chongqing and Chengdu are very close cities, and Lucia and I plan to return the visit in a couple of weeks. Having a guest gave us a chance to show off Chongqing, to see some of the tourist attractions we haven't been to yet, and to trade stories about living in central China as a foreigner.

On Saturday, we visited the Chongqing Urban Planning Exhibition Hall. They had some pretty neat scale models of the city and the region, but I won't bore you with more photos of tiny buildings. If you really want to see them, feel free to email me and I'll send them your way.

The Exhibition Hall is right under the plaza at ChaoTianMen, which is the tip of the peninsula that makes up the Yuzhong District (downtown) of Chongqing.

China's Love Affair with Scale Models

One thing I have noticed in the few weeks since I've been here: China loves scale models.

I'm a complete sucker for these intricate displays, a reaction that probably could have been predicted by my obsession with miniatures as a child (and as a young adult...and in my 20s...Have you ever been to the Art Institute of Chicago's Thorne Miniature Rooms? They're incredible! But I digress.).

Anyway, I posted some pictures already from the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Hall, and we will be visiting the Chongqing Urban Planning Exhibition Hall this weekend, but in the mean time (in case anyone else has hidden obsessions with miniatures), I'll post a few photos of two of the private scale models we've seen. These seem to be a favorite tool for real estate developers, to demonstrate what their project will look like and sell space.

Week 1 in Chongqing

The city I'll call home for the next 8 weeks is quite a bit different from Shanghai.

For one, it's hotter. Topping out in the upper 90s each day, with major humidity, I'm reminded of the hottest weeks in Chicago, except this is never-ending. I got truly spoiled in one short year with the LA weather, and by the time I acclimate to this weather, it may be time head back to the States.

There are some fascinating articles out there about Chongqing, some of which I've already linked in previous posts. Here is another great one in the NY Times, brought to my attention by my roommate/classmate/co-intern/friend Lucia. This article, in particular, captures some of the vibe I've been feeling here as a Westerner in a city with very, very few Westerners.

Part 2: International Association of China Planning Conference

During my stay in Shanghai, I attended the International Association of China Planning Annual Conference. This year the topic was "Building Resilient Cities" -- something I've been doing some research on at UCLA this past year. The conference was equal parts awkward and awesome, as I didn't know any other people there and most of the attendees were not native English speakers. I'm never super comfortable injecting myself into conversations with strangers; at the conference I was even more reticent to do so since the language barrier was potentially so high.

But, I made it through. Some of the sessions were very interesting, discussing the fallout from the big 2008 earthquake in Sichuan and how the country has rapidly rebuilt. It was particularly interesting starting off my summer in a community of academics, both American and Chinese (and a few Europeans), who feel pretty comfortable being critical of the way planning is happening in China. I have only been at my internship in Chongqing a few days (more on that, to come) and already I think the attitude is quite different. This cultural divide between academics and practitioners exists in the US, as well.

Part 1: Shanghai

Tonight is my last night in Shanghai. I've been here five days, hosted by some wonderful friends. It's made for a smooth transition from Western culture to Chinese culture, though I guess that remains to be seen when I make it out to Chongqing tomorrow.

I spent the past few of days exploring some museums and neighborhoods. I first visited the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum, at the recommendation of one of my professors. The (Chinese) ticket-taker asked if I was Jewish, and when I said yes, he replied "Shalom!" Strange, strange introduction to the country.