Five Things the U.S. Can Learn From China

From the November 23, 2009 issue of Time Magazine and Time.com.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1938671,00.html

"One day this summer, Sean Maloney, an executive vice president at Intel, was bouncing from one appointment to another in northeastern China, speeding along in a van traversing newly built highways.

He gazed out at one of the world's biggest construction projects: a network of high-speed train lines — covering 10,000 miles (16,000 km) nationwide — that China is building. As far as the eye could see, there sat vast concrete support struts, one after another, exactly 246 ft. (75 m) apart. Each was full of steel cables and weighed about 800 tons.

"We used to build stuff too," Maloney mused, unprompted. "But now it's NIMBY [not in my backyard] every time you try to do something. Here,'' he joked, "it's more like IMBY. There's stuff happening here, everywhere and always."

For full text and photos: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1938671,00.html