Today isn't so bad, and neither was yesterday.

Yeah, today & yesterday are an improvement over the first 2 days of the long wkend. Even those who drove out to the countryside said the air was bad.

I can see out my 18F office window quite a distance, which is a good sign. Not clear blue skies but I'm happy to take anything below 200.

Better in what way? How is it falling short of reasonable expectations?

It has enormous scope, is continuing to expand through the foreseeable future, is cheap as dirt and has a good safety record in comparison to say London or Boston. Moreover, it is air-conditioned and has decent mobile phone reception.

Try an articulated bus with wooden floors choking diesel fumes and so crowded you can't breath those fumes anyway.

+1

In spite of the annoyingly long transfers, Beijing's subway network is pretty damn impressive. Furthermore, Big Brother has mandated that all points within 4th Ring (a massive area... think Rhode Island) will be within 15 minutes walking distance of a subway station by 2020. To the best of my knowledge, no other city in the entire world can boast such, or has aspirations of doing so. Oh, and it will get built.

That having been said, we really need Tokyo style express trains (i.e. if they really care about Financial Street, it should be possible to get there from the CBD in 15 minutes, as opposed to 40 minutes). Many of us are looking forward to Line 6 because it will offer express trains. (I recently relocated to a building that has indoor access to a major Line 6 station, and can already envision a repeat of the Shuangjing success story.)

The bottom line is that everyone knows that the air pollution and the traffic are Beijing's two biggest drawbacks; subway expansion = 两鸟一石.

Paris, though not as massive.

US embassy has started posting their numbers for Shanghai.
Similar to what they are doing for Beijing.

http://twitter.com/#!/cgshanghaiair

A senior Chinese official demanded on Tuesday that foreign embassies stop issuing air pollution readings, saying it was against the law.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...85408S20120606

So, is the China Daily reporter who plugged the US Embassy Twitter account in for any sort of trouble?

I think the reason, at least partly, for the recent upswing in official resentment is that for some time, having the feed on twitter kept it away from the vast majority of chinese. But very recently, many, many apps have popped up that basically give the embassy information without need for a vpn.

No longer is it expats and a handful of rich chinese getting the info...hence trouble.

tb

Well, the USA could be neighborly and offer to pay for putting up a similar pollution monitor at the Chinese Embassy in Washington, DC.

what are some of the apps that you are referring to? Just curious...

Just type "beijing air" into google play/ itunes and there are several options that pop up. Not sure if they come up outside of china (not sure of your location).

tb

http://www.shanghaidaily.com/nsp/Met...2Bto%2Bforget/

"Its air quality index made it the dirtiest city in the country over the weekend because of straw burning, an agricultural practice that is banned in Shanghai."

I saw straw burning on my way from Pudong airport to the city just a few days ago.

thanks! Looks like more work for the staff of the Great Firewall.

this is happening right now. I am going to pack a few N95 respirators since I heading there this Friday.

http://news.google.com/news/story?cf...za9nDvTMl2HJjM

http://news.google.com/news/story?hl...ed=0CDgQqgIwAA