He did a test case for his system for natural wastewater treatment in Fuzhou, China. The city was apparently full of canals into which residents dumped effluent; the solution put into place by Mr. Todd use plants and bacteria to purify the water–the canals now have rows of aquatic plants running down the middle, with a walkway too.

Could China present a prime opportunity for testing new ecological design solutions?

Here’s a link to his page with the pdf files of the Fuzhou project: http://www.toddecological.com/casestudies.html

I saw his presentation a couple of years ago, it would be interesting to know how it’s working out now.

I just finished reading Pankaj Mishra’s “The Train to Tibet:Beijing Comes to Lhasa”, an article in this (4-16-07) week’s New Yorker Magazine ( not online). As the title indicates, it looks like Lhasa is more and more a Chinese city every day now with the new train service from Beijing to Lhasa- the highest railroad in the world. The train has already speeded immigration such that Tibetans are now a minority. According to the Tibetan government in exile, of the 5000 visitors that come per day, 2000 stay. That’s awesome, if so.

FredR: I found the parks in China absolutely fascinating, and alluring. I saw multiple string quartets (just friends playing together), painters, and ballroom dancers, along with kids playing, pigeon coops, tai chi practitioners, etc. I was amazed to see public employees picking up litter and sweeping the walks. And people smiling and enjoying their public space, for free. I was jealous, and wished that we still had public spaces and the notion of city-wide (not tribal) community here in the US.

Additionally, there was an article in Harper’s last year that discussed the rate of infrastructure development—the numbers were equally mind bending. I am at work now… but I will look up some specifics and add them when I get home.

Historically, China was the dominant world power until the 17th century. China had advanced technologies that were highly sustainable for populations much larger than 17th century levels. In the 18th century, China started to become corrupted with western technologies, and rapidly developed dangerous urban levels of contagion and pollution. Since then, China has repeated the same horrific mistakes of other developing nations, despite the “late deployment” advantage of being able to watch and so avoid most of these mistakes.

Having visited Shenzhen myself twice, I have observed that in the most recent growth burst, they are able to build clean, well planned neighborhoods with what appears (appearances can be deceiving) to be sound infrastructures.