A New Mega City is Born »

According to the chief planner, Ma Xiangming:

“The idea is that when the cities are integrated, the residents can travel around freely and use the health care and other facilities in the different areas.”

He further added,

“It will help spread industry and jobs more evenly across the region and public services will also be distributed more fairly.”

I think this idea is undeveloped and ultimately disadvantageous. As the blog Climate Adaptation correctly notes, this means nine cities will no longer exist…. and it’s likely that people will lose their identities within a generation or three.

Chief planner Xiangming’s proposition of allowing 42 million people to “traveling around freely” will most likely not end well. Frankly, I think most people are smart enough to realize that when speaking of 42 MILLION people, you probably don’t want to bring up transportation at all. If you do bring it up, you should be honest and say, hey, it’s likely going to be a clusterfuck. Without going into too much detail, I think it will ultimately create many socio-economic injustices and honestly, be an uncomfortable place to live, not to mention probably one of the worst ecological disasters in the world. I love cities and in the end I think urban life is the best choice, but this is not a city. This looks like a mess that would result in a situation where the normal benefits of a city are not possible. Basically, I can’t imagine a citizen of this yet-to-be named city being happy.