8 August

Rather than try to make their regions independently successful, China is rejecting the separation into city and country. It’s connecting regions more aggressively to their mega-cities, with fantastic transport and other infrastructure. Making them a more integrated part of the cities, as described in my diagram. Our regions evolved from the cities, and then forgot that. Nearly all regional towns began as resource extraction hubs for the cities. Right now our regions are just immature city life, lacking infrastructural integration with cities. History started that work, then stopped. They won’t survive trying to be competitor cities with the big cities, or as fantasy ‘country life’ theme parks.