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To: russwinter who wrote (65096)	7/2/2006 1:25:12 PM
From: gregor_us	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 110194

NYT Magazine Today Has Large Cover Story on China Car Culture. My comment on India's and China's enormous push to build national superhighway systems would be that, by the time these footprints are fully built out and people want to use them, the cost of energy will already be transforming auto use to short, higher productivity trips, and emergency services. It's nice there's a road from Delhi to Calcutta, but very few will make that trip by car in the years ahead. There's a touch of irony in the Indian superhighway diamond: India has the most number of railtrack miles of any country in the world. So the rail-beds are laid, and public-takings are already behind the Indians. All they need to do is upgrade. I would keep my eye on companies like Siemens (and Alstom, and Bombardier), which are already the go-to infrastructure engineering firms that will play a big role in the inevitable upgrades of the railway infrastructure. While I might not go so far to say these superhighway investments are tragedies, uhm, they are pretty close. ____________________________________________________________ China's first modern expressway, the Guangzhou-Shenzhen Superhighway, was built in the early 1990's by the Hong Kong tycoon Gordon Y.S. Wu. Wu studied civil engineering at Princeton in the mid-50's, when construction was beginning on the U.S. Interstate Highway System. At the same time, the New Jersey Turnpike was being widened from four lanes to many lanes, and Wu has said it inspired him. (His powerful firm, Hopewell Holdings, is named after a town near Princeton.) Though Wu ran short of money and the ambitious project had to be rescued by the Chinese government, the toll-road model of highway development caught on. Wu's Guangzhou-Shenzhen Superhighway was the beginning of an infrastructure binge that seems to be only picking up steam: the government recently announced a target of 53,000 freeway miles by 2035. (The U.S. Interstate Highway System, 50 years old last week, presently comprises about 46,000 miles of roads.) Some new roads, especially in the less-developed western parts of the nation, are nearly empty: China is encouraging road construction ahead of industrial development and population settlement, assuming those will follow. The goal, of course, is not simply to replicate the boom of coastal areas, where the majority of the country's population now lives. China's larger aim is to consolidate the nation. Its version of Manifest Destiny — the "great development of the West" or "Go West" policy begun in January 2000 — envisions far-western territories, like Tibet and the fuel-rich province Xinjiang (the name translates as "New Frontier"), fully integrated, ethnically and economically, with the rest of the country. It seems quite likely that, similar to the case with American history, local indigenous cultures stand to lose along the way. What the United States gained (and lost) with the Pony Express, covered wagons and steam trains, China may achieve with roads and automobiles. nytimes.com

To: russwinter who wrote (65096)	7/2/2006 10:05:32 PM
From: TobagoJack	Respond to of 110194

you sound upset

To: russwinter who wrote (65096)	7/3/2006 11:59:53 AM
From: GST	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 110194

I just returned from Guangzhou -- the air is the cleanest I have seen it in ten years. The south is looking increasingly prosperous in every sense. I covered a wide swath, from the very, very local village level to the centers of commerce in Guangzhou and Shenzhen. I was very impressed. Beijing on the other hand is in a building-pollution boom. I counted 60 cranes at one Olympics construction site. But I expect two years from now to see a big change there as well.