This is China! BLOG

Capital Gains in China

Why is it that China’s capitals are foul places in which to live? With the exception of Kunming (capital of Yunan) – which is developing an air low-quality octane – I find most of the capital cities I’ve been to are great paeans to commercial greed and lousy – if any – city planning.

Beijing as the nation’s capital sets the pace, if not the actual model: crowd ‘em in and stack ‘em high. No rhyme or reason. Mow down any remaining cultural identity. In Beijing, it was the great city wall in the 1950’s that first suffered the urge to Urban Renewal; in the new century it is the charming hutong and siheyuan, family courtyards. And then of course there is the incessant traffic, which only eases off when all the out-of-towners at Spring Festival return to their hometowns. The pollution is thick, acrid, crusting the eyes and searing the throat. Building cranes are everywhere, despite a density of new construction that defies modern ideas of what actually defines a harmonious environment.

I found the capitals Fuzhou (Fujian) and Hefei (Anhui) not much better. An afternoon stroll in downtown Fuzhou saw me lost in a maze of pedestrian overpasses that laced gloomy-eyed high rises that struggled to poke their crowns over the layer of smog which smothered the ground. I threw open the hotel curtains in Hefei one early morning to see a bloated, elongated sun rising. The sight sapped my desire to go out for an early morning stroll: 6am and cars were already gridlocked in one of the city’s main thoroughfares; the lakeside park was all but empty of the taijiquan and other exercise enthusiasts one usually sees exercising in China at dawn.

There are bits of Nanjing (capital of Jiangsu) I like – Fuzimiao Temple Area; Golden Chicken Temple; Sun Yat Sen memorial, Xuanwu Lake – but otherwise, Nanjing has also become a heavily polluted, mind-numbingly congested capital city. The part of Nanjing that lays north of the Yangtze River is heavily polluted in land, water and air by one of the highest concentrations of chemical factories to be found in China. I never feel well after a few hours in the northern stretches there.

Shanghai as its own capital is at least working on an outward appearance of being a cosmopolitan city – as opposed to Beijing, which is limited in personality by political in-breeding - while I do find Chongqing as its own capital charming and dis-orienting because it unceremoniously plumps itself upon cliffs that tower over the Yangtze River in the interior of China, far from the prying eyes of central government. However, it too is a great sprawling plate of urban spaghetti.

Likely the nicest of the lot is Hangzhou (capital of Zhejiang), which is precisely and rigidly planned around the West Lake. Tourism is Hangzhou’s saving grace, giving city planners a focus and setting the commercial priorities of the city.

An international real estate developer once asked me why I thought China’s capitals were such a mess. I replied I believed it was because a capital primarily derives its meaning from being a power center. In China – besides money – relationship is a main currency of power. And as is the case in so many instances in China, relationships trump common sense, planning for the future, the environment and so much more.

The Developer agreed, citing a project they had constructed with great difficulty in Shenyang, capital of Liaoning Province. The city fathers had their own plans for the project, which in the end overran schedule and was smaller than the Developers had planned at the beginning. “The politicians all had their own agendas,” the Developer told me.

Guess I’ll just stay put for now in l’il ole Suzhou.

Bill Dodson
SUZHOU, China