Residential condominium towers line China’s major streets. Almost all of the ground floor residential units have been converted into small businesses. Welding shops sit beside scooter repair shops, convenience stores, hair stylists, hardware stores, fruit stands, bank branches and restaurants.
Another big advantage that China enjoys is that the municipal governments are free to plan for the long term. They do not have constituents demanding lower taxes.

For example, Toronto needs far better transit options, but money is scarce. So it has trouble deciding if it would improve its crumbling roads or build light rail lines, bicycles lanes, expressways, streetcar lines or subways. In the last nine years, Toronto could only afford to extend one subway line and build one light rail line.

As for the rest, Toronto’s mayor brags about how he filled 13,000 potholes in the city roads last year. Can you imagine the mayor of a major Chinese city bragging about how many potholes he had filled? They would brag about how many new roads, subway lines and expressways they’ve built.

During the same nine years, Changchun has built three light rail lines as well as a new railway station for the two high-speed train lines that connect the city with Harbin to the north, Beijing to the west and Dalian to the south.