Quote:
Originally Posted by myBrain
That's completely absurd, and I've lived in China and traveled a fair amount of the country.
Certainly much of China is newer, and there are definitely places that the government keeps super-clean, but the majority of any Chinese city is going to be dirtier than downtown Austin.
And Tokyo does a great job with litter, but there's a lot that needs to be powerwashed there too.
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I'm just talking about Tier 1 cities in China. My point is, there is much room for improvement, as I frequently am a bit put off by what I see when I am in downtown Austin. I often facetime with my friends who live in China while I walk around the city and they walk around their city, and I am embarrassed for them to see the streets of our downtown. Compared to what they show me of Shenzhen, or Hangzhou, or Shanghai, America, and Austin, just looks dirty. Many people think that Asian cities countries are less developed than America, but most of our cities probably look like undeveloped countries to them.
The problem here is that no one wants their tax dollars going to things that aren't "necessary". A polished sidewalk is not necessary for a functional sidewalk, so no one cares to pay to have it cleaned. But it's disappointing. The government should be taking care of things like this for us. Or it should be required that the owners of downtown property touching a sidewalk should directly handle the logistics of keeping it shiny. Something should be done. Just having developers put money into a "city improvement" just adds more indirection to actually having an effect or accomplishing something.