In the last five years, China has built 20,000 miles of expressways

[phantom power]

In the last five years, China has built 20,000 miles of expressways, finishing the construction of 12 national highways a whopping 13 years ahead of schedule and at a pace four times faster than the United States built its interstate highway system. Over the last decade, Shanghai alone has built some 1,500 miles of road, the equivalent of three Manhattans. China's urban population is projected to grow by 350 million people by 2020, effectively adding today's entire U.S. population to its cities in less than a decade. China has already passed the United States as the world's largest car market, and by 2025, the country will need to pave up to an estimated 5 billion square meters of road just to keep moving.

China's love affair with the car has blossomed into a torrid romance. In April, nearly a million people poured into the Beijing International Automotive Exhibition to coo over the latest Audis, BMWs, and Toyotas. But China is in danger of making the same mistakes the United States made on its way to superpower status -- mistakes that have left Americans reliant on foreign oil from unstable parts of the world, staggering under the cost of unhealthy patterns of living, and struggling to overcome the urban legacy of decades of inner-city decay.

...

If anything, due to China's high population density, the Chinese urban reckoning will be even more severe than America's. Already, traffic in Beijing is frequently at a standstill despite the incredible pace of road construction (a "solution" akin to trying to lose weight by loosening your belt). The situation is so dire that Beijing, Guangzhou, and Shanghai are using a lottery to allocate a limited number of vehicle registrations. In August 2010, a 60-mile traffic jam stopped a highway outside Beijing for 11 days. There's a reason no high-density city has ever been designed around the car: It simply doesn't work.

The form of China's urban growth will also shape much of the country's environment -- and not for the better. As Beijing orders up ever more freeways and parking lots, walking, biking, and public transit are declining. Since 1986, auto use has increased sixfold in Beijing, while bike use has dropped from nearly 60 percent of trips to just 17 percent in 2010. The congestion, air quality, and greenhouse gas impacts of this shift have been massive: Beijing remains one of the world's most polluted major cities. Merely to ensure blue skies during the 2008 Olympics, the city spent some $17 billion restricting traffic and shutting down factories; it even employed 50,000 people to fire silver iodide at clouds to release rain. Across China, injuries to drivers, pedestrians, and bikers are on the rise. From 1992 to 2004, the bicycle-related mortality rate increased 99 percent in Shanghai, the municipal government found. According to state media, some 300 people die each day in traffic accidents in China, the world's highest rate, and traffic accidents are the leading cause of death for people under age 45. The underlying reason for these trends is no mystery: bad urban planning.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/08/13/weapons_of_mass_urban_destruction

[demosincebirth]

1. We can do that too, if we're able to pay our workers ten bucks a day

[AverageJoe90]

2. China's liable to implode in about a decade anyhow, what's the point? nt

[NickB79]

3. The question is, who do they take down with them when they implode?

And will they resort to US-style overseas military exploits in a last-ditch attempt to secure resources to maintain the status quo? They are securing resources in Africa big-time right now, for example. How far will they go to hold their country together, when they have a billion mouths to feed, house, and cloth?

[pscot]

4. Following the German model

You go 100 mile an hour until you reach a town. The last 5 miles take 10 hours.