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China's auto nightmare

Editor -- Robert Collier's article on the Chinese passion for cars, suburbs and greenhouse gases was excellent, yet still incomplete ("The good life means more greenhouse gas," July 6).

Emissions are only half the reason that China's leaders should not hope that eventually every Chinese family owns a car.

The equally important limit is that China does not have the land and other resources needed for the huge accompanying infrastructure, especially with suburban sprawl.

In the United States, cities, freeways, roads, car and truck manufacturing, sales, service and parking consume from 30 percent to 40 percent of valuable urban land and an enormous amount of steel and concrete.

Most of China's huge landmass is mountains and desert, so it has a relatively small amount of usable land per capita.

The American dream of a car (or two) in every suburban garage will quickly become a nightmare in China.

Ernest Lowe

written in response to The good life means more greenhouse gas by Robert Collier, San Francisco Chronicle, Wednesday, July 6, 2005


see also the transcript for the US Public Broadcasting System’s Nova series, World in the Balance: China Revs Up:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/3109_worldbal.html
Airdate: April 20, 2004

Both of these sources focused exclusively on air emissions, especially greenhouse gases, as the key issue, without mentioning the huge amount of urban land needed for road-based transport.

See this Indigo page for a vision of an integrated rail-based transportation system, with high performance individual vehicles as a choice for occasional use.
Three levels of transportation design

back to Circular Economy page

more detail on the limits of cars in China coming soon!