Post Submitted by Meghan Girvin:

There is little doubt that China is experiencing many changes as it advances as a society. One of these changes is the increasing desire of Chinese citizens to own a car. China has been known as the “kingdom of bicycles” for so long and recent development has people moving away from bicycles and favoring cars as the major mode of transportation. Chinese citizens purchased nearly 6 million cars in 2005, making China the second largest car market. Also, car ownership is increasing in China faster than anywhere else in the world - 15% per year.

This trend has implications for both Chinese society and the world as a whole. The increased desire for cars has come with major highway and roadway construction projects. This means that rural areas will now be better connected to bigger cities and residents of these areas may be able to get better jobs and have more access to things like medical supplies. But, this also means that cars will take over the roadways and the lower class in cities that rely on bikes for transportation will be pushed from the roads and may have a hard time getting to work.

Do the positives for the poor in rural areas outweigh the negatives faced by the poor in cities? From a global perspective, how is this new trend going to impact the environment? There are so many people in China and if they start to own and use cars like we do in America it is going to have a huge impact on the environment. Should there be some sort of regulation put in to place that limits the amount of cars allowed in China? Is that fair? Also, if more and more Chinese are driving cars there will be more competition for oil. Will this impact our ability to obtain enough oil to support the way we live? There are many things that may be affected by this new trend in China and it is important examine all possible implications. For more on this topic, read the article Shanghai by Bike in Sierra Magazine.

[Prof. Carr Addendum: Good post. Oh, and by the way, you think that the traffic is bad in LA? Yeah, right. Check out this One Man Bandwidth post and You Tube video on traffic in Guangzhou, one of the cities we will visit.  See also the NY Times article directly related to Meghan's post, "GM Sees China, and the Chinese, in a Chervolet" -- it appears that only success in the Chinese market may save GM]