Looking out for willing donorsIT IS barely eight in the morning and the two levels of a hospital’s car park are already full. A queue of backed-up vehicles snakes around the corner and onto a major street, causing a traffic jam in downtown Wenzhou, a coastal city. “Reverse, reverse, reverse,” barks an attendant, blowing on a whistle and pointing this way and that as he guides one car out to let another in. Tempers flare amid a cacophony of horns. A young man, Yang Linfeng, seems untroubled by the chaos as he walks back to his car. In for his annual physical, he says he knew exactly what to expect: he came an hour early just to find a parking spot.
Similar scenes play out around China every day. Whether at hospitals, near schools and offices or outside popular restaurants and shopping malls—just about anywhere people congregate—parking has become a major aggravation of urban life. It is in some ways a good problem for China, a sign of growing prosperity. Car ownership is expanding by about 10% a year, even as the economy slows.
But it also suggests a flaw in the country’s approach to building cities. In...Continue reading
Source: China http://ift.tt/2eeQwwY
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