Kevin Thom - Hamilton, Toronto, Ontario Photographer

There was a story in the Hamilton Spectator today about the potential changes to traffic in Hamilton if we went ahead with a proposed light rail transit system. Businesses in the city seem concerned about the impact that light rail will have. In my opinion, there will be an impact, but it will be positive.

The thing that excites me most about the proposal is that there will be a pedestrian mall created in the centre of the city. Traffic will be routed around this area, and only the light rail and people on foot will be allowed in. Although this seems radical in our car-centric world, it makes a lot of sense on a human scale, and I think the city will benefit greatly from it. I don’t just say this off the top of my head. I’ve experienced these pedestrian malls in every city in China that I visited, and I found them to be a real eye-opener. In every case, pedestrian malls were the most vibrant hubs of commercial and tourist activity in the city. There were no vacant store-fronts or derelict buildings that are the norm in our North American downtown cores. Businesses were thriving because tens of thousands of people crowd these areas every single day and night to shop, eat and socialize. In each and every city, the real estate in these pedestrian mall areas was the most highly prized… and priced. Pedestrian malls have the potential to become economic engines that drive a city’s economy. Moreover, they can be cultural centres and icons that exemplify a city. Hamilton’s creation of this type of zone would go a long way to erasing its grimy lunch-bucket image.

Having experienced it, it simply makes sense to me now. Pedestrian malls are places where people love to shop because they are not beset on all sides by cars. They’re not choking on diesel fumes and worried about being run over by trucks. They can just relax and enjoy themselves. The result is that people want to be there. When people want to be there, business will want to be there too.

I really hope that Hamiltonians can overcome their fear of change, because the status quo here just does not work. It seems unfair that change is often painted in a negative light in this city. It’s as if people think we’re living in some kind of utopia where milk and honey rain from the skies. We could stand some improvement, and need to look at other places in the world for inspiration. It’s not just China that has had success with traffic restriction in its cities. I’ve heard success stories from London, Copenhagen and other European cities too. I hope Hamilton recognizes that this is a wonderful opportunity to become a leader in North America by embracing this emerging model of urban living.

Here are a couple of photos of pedestrian mall areas in China. After a few cities, I stopped photographing them because it just became such a normal sight. Maybe it will become a normal sight here in Canada too?

The title of this article rhymes, if you say it right. I’m finding it a lot easier to get around in China with my little bit of Chinese. Just the small matter of knowing how to pronounce the name of a place when buying train tickets to that place saves me a lot of time miming and staring at puzzled faces.

I didn’t write anything yesterday, mainly because I didn’t do a lot of photography. The day was devoted to recovering from the last couple of days of strenuous activity and body-clock adjusting. Dad and I took a river cruise to see Shanghai from a different perspective. The amount of development evident in the city is astounding. There’s a neverending stream of barges heading up-river, carrying loads of construction materials. At any time, and in every direction, there seem to be dozens of skyscrapers under construction. In the run-up to the 2010 Expo, Shanghai is fully caught up in a frenzy of transformation.

In the evening, we got dinner and massages, which is probably about the best way you could spend an evening. After the very vigorous massage, I feel ready to tackle the rest of the country.

This morning, we checked out of the hostel and taxied to the train station. The high-speed train to Suzhou was a snap, taking about half an hour. Suzhou is one of many canal towns in this region. I use the word “town” lightly, as there are almost 6 million people living here. Considering Shanghai’s ballooning population of 19 million, it’s all relative, really.

The hostel is charmingly located on the edge of a canal, along a pedestrian street of renovated Ming Dynasty buildings. It’s been renovated, and has plenty of character, although some things don’t work. Some of the fancy light fixtures in here remain stubbornly dark when you flick the switch.

I took a few photos around the neighbourhood around dusk, and then later on in the evening. The town is pretty lively. There was some sort of dance warmup or rally in front of one of the local businesses. That’s a pretty cool marketing trick!

Tonight I did a little exploring Shanghai with my camera. While I was getting a sort of substandard photo of the Grand Theatre, I met a very talkative old gent. It seems that producing a fancy camera on the street causes most Chinese to take notice, and a good number of them to come over and chat. We conversed half in Chinese and half in English. Okay, to be honest, it was more 90% in English and 10% Chinese. His English was 90% better than my Chinese, so it only seemed fair. Kind of cool to think that he was 16 when Mao kicked off the revolution. He suggested that Laura and I should bring our Birth Your Dreams exhibition to Beijing or Shanghai because it would be good for my career. No kidding, right?

Afterward, I headed down to East Nanjing Road, which is a seemingly endless, neon-encrusted mall floating upon a boiling sea of consumers. This frenzy of consumerism makes Times Square look like a convenience store. Through the heart of this was a long line of Communist Chinese flags, set out to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic. Those flags, adorning this, the most capitalist place I’ve ever experienced, created a fascinating contrast even in a country that’s seemingly made of juxtapositions.

I went to bed around 8:30 last night, and woke up fully refreshed at 4 in the morning. So, I figured I’d make a little walk down to the Bund to try to catch the sunrise over Pudong’s spectacular futuristic skyline. The only problem is, there was no way to access the boardwalk area that would have given me a view of the river and the skyline. There are billboards up everywhere proclaiming the improvements that are coming in time for the world expo that Shanghai is hosting in 2010. One such improvement is a comlete demolition and rebuilding of that waterfront area. Unfortunately, that means that there’s no access to it.

Dad and I spent the next four hours wandering around the old part of the city, including a park filled with seniors exercising, swinging their arms in vigorous calesthenics, and repeatedly slapping circulation into their skinny legs. There was a group of them grooving to pulsing dance music too. Fun.

We returned to the hostel by about 10am, feeling like we’d already had a full day.

One thing that’s new since I was here last is that many more sites seem to be blocked by the Great Firewall of China. Facebook and Twitter are both verboten. Oddly, I can still get on Twitpic.

Well, here I am again. Dad and I have arrived in Shanghai. The sterile white of Pudong airport was a soft buffer into the country after spending 14 hours in the bizarre perpetual twilight of the Air Canada 777. We took the maglev train from the airport into the city. The 30km trip took somewhat less than 7 minutes at speeds of up to 430km/h. Whoosh!

We have checked into our hostel. It’s not a bad littleplace, built upon a traditional building in the heart of the city. We’re going to spend a few days getting acclimatized to the country before heading out to the more remote areas of the country later.

More updates after I get some sleep.