Posted on 01/05/2013 7:53:42 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Despite the global economic slowdown, Asia's cities are continuing to widen the perceived technological gap between its American counterparts.
The juxtaposition is visible from the moment your feet leave the plane. Many of the airports in Asia's biggest cities are stunning, engineering marvels — and make those in the U.S. seem outdated.
Has America's early leadership in technology and engineering evaporated? Or is it hidden at first glance?
1) The Shanghai Magnetic Levitation (Maglev) floats on magnets and is the world's fastest commercially operated train, traveling at speeds up to 268 mph.
2) Seoul's local government has launched a $44 million plan to blanket the city with free Wi-fi.
3) Some Japanese street signs have heat maps to relay congestion information to drivers and directly influence traffic patterns
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
We were at a restaurant over the holiday. A local landmark where they post autographed pictures of notable patrons. One wall was of state and federal politicians. While we were waiting I loudly dubbed it the wall of shame. One of the toothy ones, current congress creep Dan Boren, I pointed out. My B-I-L asked if I meant the one visited by the tooth fairy. Yup, that is the one. All mouth, ears, teeth and eyes and nothing in between. Good friend of Paul Ryan.
I would dub them not the sharpest collection of arrows in the quiver but they are sharp enough to fleece the hell out of us, collect $178,000 a year, a fat pension, insider trading, all they can steal and come out millionaires. The Civil War should start in their offices.
I don’t know a single city I’d choose to live in.
Grew up outside DC; When I had to professionally, I spent at least a few years each in Memphis, Albuquerque, Cincinnati, San Diego, Nashville; more than brief visits to New York twice, Boston twice,Tucson, San Francisco, Dallas a number of times; a few days or more in Chicago, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Denver, Richmond, Phoenix, Las Vegas, LA. And all those were back when they those cities were a heck of a lot better than I hear they are lately.
Currently live an hour and a half drive from Seattle and avoid it like the plague.
Concerning American cities, I agree with Steve McQueen: “I rather wake up in the middle of nowhere than in any city on earth.” I enjoyed London for several months when young, and a number of months in Chengdu back before China modernized. Probably not the same now.
Last year we flew out of Barcelona and I think Munich and Frankfort and those airports put ANY and ALL of ours to SHAME!!! OMG!! The shopping was like 5th AVenue and you could eat off the floors, they were so clean!! ANd then we flew into La Guardia......PUKE!!
Sorry, but NY is a dirty, ugly hellhole.....well, mybe you’re right, it IS the cultural center of the world.
But we don't need more spending.
1. A mere three years ago we passed a $600 billion stimulus package for "shovel ready" jobs. Now we need another stimulus for infrastructure? Where did the other money go?
2. The real estate bubble itself, 2003-2007, was a stimulus in real estate, including property taxes gushing into cities and states, which spent the money on things like Taj Mahal schools.
3. There aren't any cities that I know of in the US which do not have a serious pension underfunding problem, so that any rational city council would need to spend on getting pension funds funded, not buying gigantic metal "trees."
Of course Asian infrastructure is more modern, they have been building the most dazzling parts of it for only the last ten years. The Empire State building is 80 years old now. Most of the infrastructure we need, we already have.
Underfunded pensions?????? Gaaak!!!!!! You’re being sarcastic.....right? The taxes you refer to gushing into cities and states and going “missing” paid for CONTRACTS with PUBLIC SERVICE EMPLOYEE UNIONS which specified RETIREMENT PACKAGES pegged at FULL ANNUAL WAGE LEVELS in perpetuity for every single union retiree. It is what has sunk ALL of the cities in California, DETROIT in Michigan, AND the U.S. Postal Service.
What happened to you, did you visit NYC 30 years ago? Go to stay with relatives living in a slum section of the city? What cities, if any, do you prefer?
My youngest brother couldn't understand when my wife and visited him and his family last year why we didn't especially want to visit Seattle. He lives in Olympia. We explained to him, with some difficulty, that we enjoy the "empty" spaces of America far more than congested cities no matter what attractions the big cities may occasionally offer as far as services and entertainment. Nothing makes me happier on a trip out west than to look out the car window and see "nothing." By that I mean no signs of "civilization."
Some parts of China are modernized. And even certain civilized parts, for example Beijing, are only modernized in certain touristy areas. Even so my younger brother and his wife took a trip to China a few years ago and said they'd never go back. Off the beaten path was exceptionally filthy and many of the Chinese were rude to foreigners. Nevertheless, I'd like to visit China some day. But after she heard my brother and his wife describe their horrible experience, I'll have a difficult time convincing my wife to go.
How could forget Chicago and LA? Atlanta? Dallas? Yes, our cities are becoming Third World.
I have vivid memories of walking through high rise housing projects near Tokyo which, according to the theories of BO and JJ, should have been breeding grounds for poverty induced crime. The loudest sound I heard was a kid, a couple of floors up, practicing a piano. What is it about these parents in crowded substandard public housing buying their kids pianos?
Then there was Kobe, after the quake, my eldest daughter, then 10 years old, stood in line for over an hour to get fresh water for the household. She reported the loudest sound in the line were other people trying to get an elderly woman to move to the front of the line and she insisting she could wait her turn. Can you imagine anything like that happening in New Orleans post Katrina?
Have the Supertrees already been built?
They are part of Gardens by the Bay - a botanical park - so they are more of a demonstration of the technology. If they are going to get deployed anywhere, Singapore would be the place.
Libertarian though I am, I have become convinced that no large city filled with fallible humans can be governed without imposition of a Lee Kwan Yew- or Rudy Giuliani-style benevolent dictatorship. An efficient and honest system for detention or deportation of undesirables is essential. Otherwise, criminals and deadbeats quickly game the system and overwhelm the good citizens.
Obama is trying to take this human failing national for political gain...and he's doing a damned good job.
I did see a lot of well-dressed, wealthy Gulf Arabs and Iranians in Shanghai, where they were on vacation and busy shopping in a country that is much friendlier to their money than our own. China, of course, isn't letting economic refugees flood across their borders from any direction.
Traveling to Asia makes me feel poor and backward, these days. The way an Asian visitor to the USA might have felt fifty years ago...
RE: Have the Supertrees already been built?
I believe they already have.
See here:
http://www.nst.com.my/red/landscape-singapore-s-garden-of-eden-1.192225
I’ve lived in NY, downtown Chicago, and Kensington, London......New York is the UGLIEST and DIRTIEST and has almost no tree-lined streets like Chicago and London. We go to NY at least once a year.
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