Thinking about cities: Were ancient cities greener than modern ones?

  

*This is part of a series called ‘Thinking About Cities’ which are parts of a book I am working on about urban green space that I’ve decided to cut out of the book manuscript.

 

Picture a large modern city. Undoubtedly, your mental image includes a lot of grey. Grey buildings. Grey roads. Maybe grey skies saturated with ozone and particulate matter. Yet we don’t see green as a dominant feature of a city despite the undeniable importance of vegetation and green space to the well-being of a city. 

 

Now picture an ancient city. This image probably has a lot less grey and more browns and greens. We likely see dirt (unpaved) roads, wooden structures, trees here and there, a river with a natural bank, and chickens and other livestock intermingled with human activity. 

 

Were ancient cities inherently greener than modern cities? If so, was this done by design, or by accident, or because humans lacked the technology to completely transform the landscape? Before we delve into this question, we need to think about what a city is and where it comes from.

 

History of the city

Cities have evolved from small permanent settlements to massive human-created landscapes that house large and densely packed populations. As Gordon Childe argued (Childe 1950), the city is a revolution. They represent revolutions of technology, governance, economics, and our relationship with nature and place. Nothing like cities existed in all of human history until about 9-10 thousand years ago when the first known large settlements appeared near the shores of the Mediterranean Sea ( These were Jericho in what is today the West Bank and Catal Huyuk in Turkey. These cities housed somewhere between 2 and 6 thousand people).  To understand the origins of the city, we need to look to the birth of the major civilizations, and to find these, we need to go to the banks of the major rivers of the Middle East and Asia. The Nile, Ganges, Tigris, Euphrates, Indus, Yangtze, and Yellow rivers were the cradles fostering the birth of cities. Just like a germinating seed, cities required water to grow. The rivers were the lifeblood of these new forms of civilization and was essential for the irrigated agriculture that fed populations, a supply of drinking water and for construction, a means for moving waste away from human populations, and were the express highways of the day –moving people and goods.

 

These first major cities were home to several thousand people (certainly less than ten thousand) living in loosely organized communal areas, and though these do not seem like cities by today’s criteria, they were massive by the standards of the day. Pre-agrarian societies supported population densities of about 0.04 people per square kilometre and early agrarian societies, which gave rise to the first permanent settlements, had between 1 and 5 people per square kilometre. Cities today have densities of hundreds or thousands of people per square kilometre.

 

The shift from nomadic cultures to agricultural ones was the necessary development for cities to emerge. Having a permanent source of food drastically changed how people spend their time and allowed them to produce more food than they could personally eat. Sounds trivial, but this new reality allowed for specialized occupations that were not focused on finding and gathering food. The farmer produces the food, while others pursue their own vocational callings like carpenter, artisan, priest, and so on. With new occupations involving training and expertise, innovation and technological development ensued. Metal workers tested new methods and alloys, farmers found ways to increase yield, and the priests and elites organized people and resources.

 

By this point, cities were all but inevitable. As different cultures shared information and technology, small cities began to emerge along the great rivers of the world. These rivers all supported the eventual growth of large cities of ten thousand or more people by about 5 thousand years ago. But the rivers also needed to be controlled. While they were an invaluable resource, they could also be unpredictable and devastating. The ancient city of Petra in modern Jordan, was a thriving capital city between 300 BC and 300 AD, but it was subject to floods after heavy storms and the Petroneans built damns and culverts to reduce flooding. This was not unique to Petra. Many ancient city archaeological sites include evidence of engineered structures designed to control flooding.

 

Cities also required governance. Ten thousand people living together would be chaotic if there wasn’t some sort of government in place to create and enforce rules. For these early cities, this governance was intertwined with religion. Temples were the centre of these early cities and provided guidance, worship, laws, education and were the focal points for political power. People no longer relied solely on family or clan allegiance but were increasingly tied to loyalties to king, high priest, and nation-state. These power structures were important for organizing people and pooling efforts and creativity into larger and larger projects, while promising protection from other nation-states, which were also increasing in power.

 

The emergence of cities was a slow evolution from small permanent settlements to large centrally governed and densely populated ones. It is hard for scholars to say with certainty when the first city appeared because both the evidence has been washed away by time and it is not entirely clear what a city is.

 

For ancient settlements, we can say that the designation as a ‘city’ corresponds to certain features that are necessary to successfully house thousands of people in a small area. These would include: sturdy streets capable of sustaining constant use, dense and organized housing, central governance and control of law enforcement, taxation to pay for services and common good building projects (e.g., aqueducts, city walls, etc.), specialized occupations and trades that provide expertise in various elements of culture, governance and construction of cities (e.g., engineers, teachers, etc.), markets allowing specialized occupations to trade goods and services, because blacksmiths do not grow much food and farmers make few metal objects, and finally cities have large and permanent impacts on local environments.

 

Let us paint a picture of an early city by looking at the largest city in the world during the 11^th century –Kaifeng, China (historically called Daliang or Bianjing). Kaifeng was the capital of the Song dynasty (960 - 1279) and at the height of its glory, it was home to somewhere between six hundred thousand and one million people. We actually know a lot about Kaifeng. China is the oldest continuous civilization on Earth and has tremendous collections of historical documents. Further, Kaifeng is still a major city today with a population of about five million people –a medium-sized city by Chinese standards, but a very large one by standards elsewhere. Most importantly, one of China’s most cherished historical artifacts is a giant scroll measuring 5.25 meters (or over 17 feet) long called “Alongthe River During the Qingming Festival”, and it beautifully depicts Kaifeng life during a national holiday. 

 

A small segment of the painting “Along the River During the Qingming Festival”, painted by Zhang Zeduan (1085-1145). It depicts city life in Kaifeng, China at the height of its prestige when it was the capital city and the largest city in the world.

From this beautiful illustration, you can see the elements of what it means to be a city. First, there are lots of people milling around and participating in different activities. There is trade, we see people moving goods in carts and on camels. There are specialized occupations, notice the tea houses and restaurants. There is organised building construction lining a major road. We see the overwhelming evidence of codified economics as people are buying goods and exchanging money (and gambling!). And with economics we see class inequalities as the lady pulls aside the silk curtains and looks out of the litter, or shoulder carriage, being carried by porters. There is a city gate protecting the population and regulating and taxing the flow of goods. If we move along the scroll, we would see the Yellow River and the docks and ships necessary to move people and goods over great distances. Looking at the amazingly detailed depictions in the scroll, we can almost smell the odours and aromas and hear the sounds that permeate through a dense city. Horses neighing, dogs barking, people shouting, and dishes clanging. This was a city by any definition.

 

So was Kaifeng greener than modern Beijing?

Obviously, Kaifeng, if it existed today, would be a greener city than Beijing. Modern Beijing, or any other megalopolis, is defined by a massive concentration of material and energy that results in a concrete landscape capable of housing millions of people. Keifeng simply had less impervious surface and more space for nature. So, the short answer is yes, ancient cities were physically greener.

 

But if we think of ‘green’ as being a philosophy or approach that directs how we interact with nature, then I don’t think we can say that ancient cities were greener. Humans have created cities precisely to alter local environments to better suit our needs. A city is the embodiment of our innate desire to increase our own fitness by removing threats (from predators and other people), creating security through strength in numbers, and reducing environment unpredictability. We might want to romanticize early human relationships with nature, but the reality is that once technologies were created that advance urbanization, they were implemented and spread rapidly. Being susceptible to flooding, early cities channelized rivers once they were able to. In response to threats from other groups of people, cities around the world accepted being encased in walls as the technologies emerged.

 

The history of cities can be seen as a continuum from small and low-impact settlements to large, urbanized landscapes like Tokyo. What drives a smaller and greener city towards being a megalopolis? So long as the population demand is there and the technologies to build a city exist, the megalopolis is all but inevitable.

 

Unlike previous generations, we are in a unique position to ask the question, what do we want a city to look like? Most of the technological hurdles that would limit urbanization have been overcome. We now have the conceivable ability to create a completely urbanized planet, like Coruscant from Star Wars. But most people would think that this is a bad idea. But is barely constrained sprawl around urban centres like Los Angeles, Mexico City, Delhi, and Toronto not a microcosm for these urbanizing forces that we think are ultimately undesirable?

 

The point is that neither in ancient times nor now do people have an agreed upon vision of urbanization’s endpoint. Urbanization has been and is driven by the mix of demand and technology, but we now need, more than ever, an agreed upon vision and set of principles directing urbanization. We need cities that minimize environmental impact, reduce the effects of inequality, and ensure people realize the potential benefits of green space.

 

So, were ancient cities greener than cites today. Yes and no. While they had less impact on their local environments, the megalopolises of today were written into their DNA. The devaluation of nature has always been a defining feature of cities. Now, more than ever, we need to rethink the relationship between the city and nature, and rewrite what is coded in a city’s DNA.

 

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Childe,V. G. (1950). The urban revolution. Town Planning Review, vol. 21, pg. 3-17.

Reclaiming contaminated land through manipulating biodiversity

Contents of this post originally appeared on the Applied Ecologist, but with expanded thoughts here.

Five years ago I spent my sabbatical in China and worked closely with a lab in Guangzhou. While there, I built meaningful collaborations and friendships that have continued to advance the science I'm involved with. While in China, I accompanied my friend, Jin-tian Li to a biodiversity field experiment on contaminated post-mining lands in Hunan province, and our discussions led to the just-published paper (please e-mail me if you want a copy) in the Journal of Applied Ecology, first-authored by a former PhD student in my lab, Pu Jia.

Why do we care about degraded lands?

According to the IPBES report on land degradation, the degradation of productive lands and intact habitats is a major threat to sustainability, biodiversity and ecosystem functioning globally, which reduces the resiliency of ecological and economic systems. In many emerging economy countries, environmentally harmful practices that result in contamination render lands and habitats seriously degraded. In many circumstances, the restoration of contaminated habitats to original conditions is not an option because the capacity for these habitats to harbor intact native ecosystems is greatly compromised. In these cases, we need management options that allow us to reclaim contaminated and degraded lands (Nathanail & Bardos 2005), and preferably ones that increase biodiversity and ecosystem function (Rohr et al. 2016).

The potential role of biodiversity in reclaiming contaminated lands

While the ecological literature on the linkages between biodiversity and ecosystem function is vast and rich (e.g., Tilman, Isbell & Cowles 2014), the application of this field of research to reclaiming contaminated lands has been strangely depauperate, and so there’s little guidance on whether we should be planting diverse plant assemblages on contaminated lands, or if we ought to simply plant the most productive species or those that provide efficient phyto-removal of contaminants. This question is of fundamental importance to places like China, where rapid development and industrialization through the 1970s-1990s resulted in severe contamination of lands near mining and mineral processing facilities (Li et al. 2019), and now with China’s commitment to improving it’s environmental health, biodiversity research has the ability to impact policy and management at a national scale.

Our paper

We evaluated whether more diverse plantings increased reclamation and ecosystem functioning of a mine wasteland in Hunan Province, China, which had been severely contaminated with cadmium and zinc over decades. We sowed plots with 1-16 species and these were selected from the herbaceous species that grew around contaminated sites in the region, and more diverse assemblages produced more biomass and were more stable over time. Further, there was less heavy metal contamination of leaf tissues in the more diverse plantings, which reduces the impact on herbivores.

Importantly though, plant diversity spurred plant-soil feedbacks (PSFs) that appeared to drive the increased ecosystem functioning. Higher plant diversity supported higher soil bacterial and fungal diversity. Importantly, higher plant diversity was accompanied with more soil cellulolytic bacteria that exude enzymes that degrade cellulose and so drive decomposition and nutrient cycling, which are essential components of a functioning ecosystem. 




Furthermore, the multi-species assemblages also performed better because these high diversity treatments harboured fewer soil fungal pathogens (and by extension more beneficial soil fungi). This appeared to be driven by the fact that high plant diversity supported a greater diversity of soil chitinolytic bacteria that produce anti-fungal enzymes that degrade the chitin in cell walls of soil-borne plant-pathogenic fungi.

In the search for efficient ways to reclaim contaminated lands, sowing high-diversity plant assemblages appear to be an effective tool. The key for reclamation is to ensure that soil processes like decomposition and nutrient cycling are able to support a self-sustaining ecosystem, and higher plant diversity can ensure this. The next steps will be to field test this in real reclamation projects and to see this research work its way into best practices.

Li, T., Liu, Y., Lin, S., Liu, Y. & Xie, Y. (2019) Soil pollution management in China: a brief introduction. Sustainability, 11, 556.

Nathanail, C.P. & Bardos, R.P. (2005) Reclamation of contaminated land. John Wiley & Sons.

Rohr, J.R., Farag, A.M., Cadotte, M.W., Clements, W.H., Smith, J.R., Ulrich, C.P. & Woods, R. (2016) Transforming ecosystems: when, where, and how to restore contaminated sites. Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management, 12, 273-283.

Tilman, D., Isbell, F. & Cowles, J.M. (2014) Biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution and Systematics, 45, 471-493.

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INTECOL 2017: Building the eco-civilisation

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The International Association for Ecology holds their global INTECOL conference every 4 years, and it was recently held in Beijing, China. Given the location of this meeting, the theme was exceptionally appropriate: Ecology and Civilisation in a Changing World. I say that it was appropriate because no place embodies change more than China’s recent history, and I would argue that China is a prime candidate to benefit from ecological science.

One thing that was clear from the outset of the meeting was that China (both the scientists attending the meeting and the policy apparatus writ large) was serious about the notion of producing an ecological civilisation, or eco-civilisation. In 2007, the Communist Party of China adopted the idea of turning China into an eco-civilisation by incorporating ecological well-being into its constitution. In 2013, the Chinese government started implementing reforms that politically prioritised ecology and the environment. Most prominent of these was that local government officials and administrators were directed to no longer ignore the environmental consequences of development.

China is globally unique in its ability to institute change, literally with the stroke of a pen. Well documented is the ability for the major cities in China to implement drastic change in transportation policy by restricting who can drive when, and building public transit infrastructure at a torrid pace (see a commentary about this). The latest examples of cities’ power over transportation include the fact that electric cars are eligible to receive license plates immediate, while owners of conventional cars are required to wait years or spend tens of thousands of dollars to get their plates. The other example is the flooding of the market with public bicycles that can be parked anywhere and that require a phone app to unlock, and they literally cost cents to use.

A market flooded with a public bike-sharing program in China. These are all shared bikes, available everywhere, and they tend to congregate around bus stops (Photo by M. Cadotte).

I found it to be an interesting juxtaposition to see the multitude of bikes everywhere with the polluted sky that was apparent for the first two days of the conference. This was the very appropriate context for our conference. From the get go the theme of using the science of ecology to improve environmental management and policy seemed to underlie most of the talks and organised sessions. For most Chinese scientists, this is the context in which they work. To them, there is no real separation between human activities and nature, and the two have been intimately linked for millennia. The opening address was by HRH Charles Prince of Wales. Prince Charles eloquently commented on the importance of ecology in the coming decades, as humanity is testing the ecological bounds of the planet, and he encouraged attendees to use their research to affect change.

HRH Charles, Prince of Wales giving the opening address (Photo by M. Cadotte).

Representing the hosting organisation, Shirong Liu outlined all the important ecological advances in Chinese ecology, especially the development of extensive ecological experiments and research networks examining issues like climate change and nutrient deposition. Echoing Prince Charles’ call, Prof. Liu commented on the importance of ecology for Chinese policy, and the many recent policy changes in China, including the establishment of national parks, habitat restoration, climate change mitigation, and the greening of cities.

Given that most of China has been modified by humans, Gretchen Daily’s keynote address seemed incredibly poignant, even though the focus was on Costa Rica. She said that we’ve pretty much protected all the places that are likely to be protected as big parks, and that adding more is increasingly infeasible (China is an outlier). Instead, we should be looking to country sides and other human-dominated landscapes as the places to implement ecological principles to better manage these systems to benefit biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. These systems are where our science needs to pay off.

Evidence of ecosystem services in the Beijing Botanical Garden (Photo by M. Cadotte).

The talks throughout the conference echoed the themes of an ecology on and for human systems. I saw numerous talks from Chinese authors on understanding and managing human impacts, in systems from grasslands to lakes to cities. I participated in a panel discussion on how ecology could be used to create an eco-civilisation, and it was clear that there was a lot of optimism that the next decades will see a renaissance of ecology in policy, I was probably the least optimistic. I am doubtful that, having seen the United States pull out of the Paris Climate Change agreement, the political will can always be relied upon and creating an eco-civilisation depends on China’s ability to increase the standard of living without taxing ecological capacity more than it has. That said, there is currently a global leadership vacuum on the environment, created by political instability in Europe and the United States, and this is the time for China to be an environmental leader. 

Regardless, I saw inspiring talks on restoring ecosystems severely modified by human activity and invasive species, from speakers like William Bond, Carla D’Antonio, and Tom Dudley. I also ran an organised session on the importance of biodiversity in human dominated landscapes which covered topics from habitat fragmentation, to the ecology of cities, to the value of sacred groves in India for biodiversity.

After listening to talks at INTECOL 2017, one cannot help but feel that this is ecology’s time. We are entering an ecological era, and if ever there was a time to use our science to affect change, it is now.

The vanishing pangolin: How do you change the value of an endangered species?

Extinction is forever. Extinction reduces the biological heritage of the Earth and is something that we cannot undo.

While living in China, and traveling around Asia, I have said something to my children I have never said before: “I want you to take a really good look, these animals will go extinct in your lifetime”.  I said this as we were watching 8 of the 60 remaining Hong Kong pink dolphins.

Hong Kong pink dolphin (photo by Shirley Lo-Cadotte)

Species become rare and endangered for many reasons, like habitat destruction, pollution, human facilitated spread of problematic species (rats for example), and direct harvesting. While all of these factors are subject to laws and regulations that attempt to control them, it is the last one, harvesting, that relies most on altering peoples' wants and desires. I don’t know why, but to me it is also the saddest cause, the idea that a species dies out because we desire it and kill it or chop it down, just doesn’t seem right.  

Walking through the market alley near my apartment in Guangzhou, China, I saw something that both intrigued and horrified me: a dead and quartered pangolin. You may not be familiar with pangolins –also called scaly anteaters; they are mammals about the size of a large cat or medium-small dog (like a cocker spaniel), with a very long and thick prehensile tail that they use in trees. Their most unique feature is that they are covered in large flat scales that are made of keratin –the same as your fingernails. 

A Chinese pangolin, Manis pentadactyla (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pangolin%27s_tail.jpgsted to Flickr by verdammelt cc-by-sa-2.0) 

Pangolins are critically endangered. They also have the distinction of being one of the most trafficked animals in the world. In China and Vietnam there is high demand for pangolins because they are considered a delicacy and more importantly their scales are used in traditional medicine. These scales are believed to provide a cure for a number of diseases, including cancer. The incidence of cancers in China is skyrocketing, which is not surprising given the level of pollution, and couple this with increasing affluence, the desire and ability to pay for pangolin parts has never been greater.

Obviously pangolin scales do not cure cancer. You might as well save your money and suck on your fingernails instead, but evidence and logic are not likely to sway mortal fear. There are groups in Asia dedicated to protecting endangered animals and educate citizens about wildlife. Such organizations have an opportunity to capitalize on recent attitude shifts in China and elsewhere, where animal wellbeing is increasingly seen as important. In China, pet ownership has increased dramatically over the past decade and pets are now seen as companions –which I suspect was partially a result of the one-child policy. But the demand for pangolins still exists. When we visited the Angkor Conservation Centre in Cambodia, which works tirelessly to rehabilitate animals and educate people, they were recovering from the theft of one of their pangolins from an enclosure, which they knew was transported to China.

The Chinese authorities are coming down hard on the illegal pangolin trade. They now routinely arrest individuals selling pangolins and seize large shipments. While such seizures and arrests show that the Chinese government is taking pangolin protection seriously, there is only so much they can do while demand is high.

Police confiscating a large illegal pangolin shipment bound for China (photo originally from news.163.com) 

My Mother-in-law, who is from southern China, said it best when I told her about the dead pangolin in the alley: “people just need to be educated”. That is really where the answer lies. Laws can only change peoples’ behaviour so much; education campaigns are desperately needed. Currently, there is an internationally funded billboard campaign in China to stop people from buying elephant ivory. Ivory demand is high in China. Despite the importance of reducing ivory purchases, I would argue that this type of education campaign needs to focus a little closer to home, and Pangolin conservation efforts are in desperate need of help. 

When we were visiting the conservation centre in Cambodia, I told my children that the Pangolin would go extinct in their lifetime. I really hope that I am wrong.

Reining in traffic –looking to China for solutions?

Human impacts on landscapes are immense. Urban areas represent complete transformations of the geological, hydrological and ecological norms in landscapes. But while urban effects are concentrated to relatively small areas, the roads and rail lines feeding cities create a pervasive and diffuse network of negative impacts. Roads funnel rain runoff and can cause local flooding and this runoff also concentrates pollutants. Further, roads alter wildlife movement. For example, the fragmentation of formerly continuous forest in Florida is worsened by large busy roads, and black bears there are unable to move long distances to find mates. The result of this is that the Florida Black bear populations are getting smaller and more genetically inbreed.

Roads are created to meet traffic demands. The more people drive and the further they drive, the more roads we build. Cities around the world are growing, meaning that more cars are concentrated in small areas. The increase in automobile use also has direct environmental consequences. Cars, thanks to their internal combustion engines, add pollution to our local environments –carbon monoxide, particulate matter, and other toxins create smog, exacerbate respiratory ailments, and contribute to global warming.

More cars also means more traffic congestion and greater difficulty in getting from A to B, meaning that we spend more time travelling to, instead of being, somewhere. Heavy reliance on automobiles directly affects our quality life in both positive and negative ways.

1950s traffic jam in Los Angeles (from Wikipedia)

Given the undesirable consequences of cars, many cities try to reduce car use. In North America, cities employ a number of strategies, including: minor improvements to public transit (while often passing on the costs to riders), creating car free zones (which have been very modest in North America, whereas European cities have been much more successful –Montpellier, France is a great example), introducing tolls, and limiting parking in the city core. It is safe to say that the North American approach to dealing with traffic has been less than spectacular –just drive through Toronto or Los Angeles during rush hour.

Living in China for the past several months, I have been intrigued by how Chinese jurisdictions have dealt with traffic. And traffic was something that needed dealing with here. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, thousands of new cars were added to roads every single day.  The air quality in China is abysmal and having hundreds of millions of cars driving at the same time only make things worse. So governments in China decided to experiment with ways to reduce automobile use.

In China, much of the power to control automobiles resides with municipalities –they are the ones who set local traffic laws and issue license plates. From conversations with scientists from different regions of China, I have compiled ways different municipalities deal with traffic and reduce automobile use. Here are some of the ways that municipalities try to reduce automobile traffic:

1) Massive investments in public transit

There can be no real traffic solutions without building fast, efficient and affordable public transit. China has been a world leader in public infrastructure development over the past ten years. For example, Shanghai has one of the largest metro systems in the world, and has opened a new line every other year since 1999! They are currently building two new lines, which will give Shanghai 18 metro lines and about 400 stations. In Guangzhou, where I currently live, they also have a very modern and rapidly expanding metro system. Guangzhou currently has 8 lines with 4 more under construction! In all the Chinese cities I’ve been in, the metro systems are modern, efficient, heavily used, and very affordable. In Guangzhou, a bus ride works out to be about 35 cents US and a metro trip to the airport (the longest trip you can take in Guangzhou I believe) is about $1.15 US.

In Toronto, where I normally live, and like most other large North American cities, subway construction has not been sufficient to keep up with population growth. Local politicians seem to be unable to make the tough decisions to get public transit infrastructure built. But this infrastructure is the linchpin for any successful reduction in automobile usage.

2) Driving days

During the 2008 summer Olympics, Beijing created a system where cars were allowed on the roads only on certain days. Which days people could drive their cars depended on the last number of their license plates. This scheme was successful in reducing traffic congestion and air pollution. Since then, they have periodically reinstated this policy, especially during extremely bad air pollution days. I was there in early December, and road sharing was in effect then.

3) Making license plates really, really expensive (or difficult to get).

In Guangzhou, Beijing, and Shanghai, getting a car is easy, but getting a license plate, now there is the real hurdle. Since 2012, Guangzhou and other cities have severely limited the number of license plates issued, and now people can get a plate in one of two ways in these cities: by joining a lottery or going to an auction. In the lottery, a person submits an application and waits for the results. One person told me it took them three years to get their plate in the lottery. In the auction, the plates go to the highest bidder and the price for a license plate at auction has sky rocketed. A person told me that plates at auction now go for more than 60,000 RMB (about  $10,000 USD), which costs more than an economy car here! This person also quipped that the plates have become more of a status symbol than the actual car.

4) Your license plate will die

In Guangzhou and other cities, license plates expire. No, not like they expire in North America where you pay an annual license fee. They expire after 10 years and are no longer valid, and the driver must re-enter the lottery. 

5) Pay the toll

Many of the intercity highways have tolls here. While this is not a policy that affects travel behaviour within cities, it does influence driver choices traveling outside the city. Tolls only work when there are decent alternatives, and the rail system in China is excellent. There are frequent trains and many high speed lines in operation (where the trains go faster than 250 km/h). We don't have many toll roads in Ontario, but the one we have near Toronto, hwy 407, doesn't go into the city (so doesn't influence commuter decisions), and does not have viable options for alternative travel. This highway is an example of poor government policy and it was one of the worst policy decisions by a government who thought private companies should run public infrastructure. Its nothing more than a cash grab that doesn't serve the broader good. But I digress.

I have been struck by the variety of approaches and the experimental nature of policy making. What I mean by experimental, is that some policies seem to be ‘test run’ to see how people respond and if the policies result in the desired effects. China is able to institute creative and extreme measures because of the government’s unique ability to change policy without public debate. Often these policies are instituted overnight with little warning. In China, people seem to take government edicts with a “well, what can you do?” attitude. But if there is a country that can change the automobile culture, China is a good candidate. They did change what a family was with the one-child policy.

While most North Americans would certainly have a problem with the lack of transparency and seemingly impulsive nature of government decisions, China is providing the world with working examples of how to reduce the number of automobiles. It is clear to most, that without strong governmental leadership, a robust set of policies, and massive infrastructure investment, heavy automobile traffic will be unavoidable.