China

Urbanization, Order, and Parks

I talked about the weather, transportation, prices, and many topics; but for me, the most beautiful part of China was the order in the cities and the importance given to urbanization. As someone who has lived in Istanbul for almost 5 years and in Turkey for all 24 years, saying "such a life was also possible" gave me pain. Because really, after seeing it with my own eyes, yes, it could be done if desired. Although I generally used the metro during my stay in Shanghai, I also took taxi and bus journeys, and in this city where a total of 24 million live, I did not get stuck in traffic even once. At the very top of the reasons for this comes planned urbanization. On almost every road in the city, the motorcycle and bicycle lane is located on the right and left sides, separate from the car road. Thanks to this, motorcycles and cars only interact with each other at traffic lights in traffic. In my opinion, thanks to these separate roads, people trust riding motorcycles more, and that's why a lot of people have motorcycles. And really a lot of people have motorcycles; from the smallest to the oldest, there are a thousand and one different kinds of motorcycles. People also like to customize their own vehicles (a small motif, toy, etc.), and since most of the motorcycles are electric, I was not disturbed by the presence of motorcycles as much as in Istanbul. The reasons for the traffic being this relaxed are not only due to urbanization but also the government's measures against this. First of all, not everyone who wants to can buy a car to use within Shanghai; for this, a certain number of license plates are put on sale every month. You might say, "there are cameras everywhere and people obey all the rules because of this, that's why there is no traffic," but I am not sure about this. There were cars and motorcycles passing on red lights, and they were all doing this right in front of the cameras. If there were such a situation, I don't think they could pass on red so comfortably.