Beijing is, in most respects, a pretty livable city. True, it has a couple of intractable problems. The air is bad and seems likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. The weather is, with the exception of the glorious but scarce spring and autumn weeks, crappy. No amount of brainwashing or propaganda seems able to put paid to the spitting. But Beijing also has its charms and amenities. On those rare days when the weather and air are both nice at the same time, it really seems like a place that you might want to live in for a long time.

That said, there are a few simple things that could be done to improve overall quality of life here. Here are ten that come to mind:

1. Ban heavy construction work in residential areas after hours even if that means, yes, reversing the ban on large trucks inside the fourth ring during the day. Have the powers-that-be thought about making that ban selective?
   
2. Dredge the garbage out of the canals and improve the pathways that line them. Stop pumping effluent into them.
   
3. Make it a crime to pimp begging children. Enforce it.
   
4. Ban all megaphones except in times of civil emergency.
   
5. Ban loudspeakers outside of stores, especially those with blown speakers.
   
6. Stop demolishing the old neighborhoods. Instead, improve their infrastructure.
   
7. Institute road pricing for all private cars entering the area inside the Third Ring. 50 RMB per day sounds about right. Put all the money into public transport and improving pedestrian and bicycle pathways.
8. Double the frequency of the subway trains during rush hour. If the system can't handle that, then upgrade the system. Air condition the cars in summer.
   
9. Start aggressively ticketing people who drive like idiots. Pay special attention to government vehicles. Fine them double.
10. Stagger the entrances and exits on the ring roads so that cars trying to enter and exit don't collide with each other (right now, the entrances are 100 meters in front of the exits, forcing the lines of traffic to cross).

Runner-up suggestion: Ban non-resident cars from the roads that line Houhai and Qianhai and cull the bars by 50%. (I removed this because it really only applies to one area.)

Fellow residents will note that my suggestions diverge from the government's plan for improving Beijing, which seems to revolve around demolishing any neighborhood with a hint of charm so that it can be replaced by towering arcologies and supermalls, expanding the roads, increasing the number of cars to the point where their combined weight causes the entire city to collapse into the center of the earth, and making life miserable for street vendors. On the positive side, they are at least also extending the subway system.

Got other suggestions? I'd love to hear them. But keep them practical. We all agree that Beijing would be nicer if the summer temperature was reduced by 10 degrees. But since that magic wand I ordered out of the back of a comic book hasn't arrived yet, that'll have to wait.


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