Posted on 05/13/2012 12:06:29 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
City divided by disgraced Communist leader's legacy
By Ed Flanagan, NBC News
CHONGQING, China – Everywhere you go in Chongqing, you can see traces of the complicated legacy of Bo Xilai, the former Communist party chief who ran this municipality of 30 million people until scandal derailed him.
At one time destined for a top post in China’s highest echelon of power, the standing committee of the politburo of the Communist Party, Bo aggressively poured money into this municipality in pursuit of his populist agenda.
To drive through the windy roads that snake around this hilly metropolis is to see a city in constant transformation. Towers of low-income housing complexes dot the skyline. These social housing projects were meant to address a major national issue: the lack of affordable housing, and provided homes that cost just a few hundred dollars a year to rent. And Bo had gingko trees, said to be one of his favorites, planted across the city.
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However, despite the accusations that paint Bo’s Chongqing was something akin to a modern-day Tammany Hall, the populism and perhaps most importantly, the pride he instilled in this mega-city suggest his popular legacy may last far longer than Communist Party officials would like.
As one driver told us, “Yeah, Bo might have been corrupt, but at least he did something for us – which is more than those corrupt officials who do nothing at all.”
(Excerpt) Read more at behindthewall.msnbc.msn.com ...
P!
“Yeah, Obama might have been corrupt, but at least he did something for us – which is more than those corrupt officials who do nothing at all.”
We have them here too.
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