Amy Stone

Facts on the ground: The Buzz remains a fan of all things Shenzhen, so what more satisfying reading than Morningstar’s Oct. 13 Web report on “The World’s Biggest Investment Opportunity?” by Pat Dorsey, a certified financial analyst who is director of stock analysis for Morningstar (http://news.morningstar.com/article/article.asp?id=175663&esection=comm).

Especially impressive, since Morningstar is the premier U.S. independent rating organization for stocks, bonds, mutual funds and corporations.

To quote Dorsey: “Shenzhen is a fascinating place. It was one of China’s first Special Economic Zones, and the economic growth unleashed by the implementation of ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’ has been phenomenal. Consider that Shenzhen had about 300,000 residents in 1980 and now has around 12 million, and the local economy has seen compound growth at something like 25 percent to 30 percent annually. As you might expect, it’s a very young city — I barely saw anyone over 40 during the week I was there. As you might not expect, it’s got a skyline that looks more like midtown Manhattan than your likely mental image of a fast-growing city in a developing economy. It’s a huge, reasonably modern, bustling place where everything is new and you can buy a good lunch for $1.50, but Starbucks coffee costs more than it does in Chicago.”

There oughta be a law: Don’t get The Buzz started on Shenzhen drivers, but who let them loose on the roads? Just a few of the Major Miscreants at the top of The Buzz’s Shame-of-Shenzhen List: The young woman driving her brand-new SUV who became so addled in the madness of Huaqiangbei congestion that she simply gave up — abandoning the wheel right in the middle of a traffic jam. Hey — having enough money to buy a car shouldn’t be the major qualification for driving one. No. 2 on the list is a male driver not only heading down a major one-way street the wrong way but doing it at night with his lights off.

But now our fair city in all its wisdom is trying to get the free-and-easy driving crowd under control by installing heavy metal pipes down the middle of congested two-lane roads. The barriers — planted in the middle of the double yellow lines — look like giant black and yellow croquet wickets pulled out of normal shape. These unbridgeable dividers keep the unruly cars channeled into one lane on each side of the road. Well, The Buzz remains unimpressed by this crude solution. Why not just teach Shenzhen drivers to drive — for starters by ticketing those scofflaws driving the wrong way down one-way streets.

The views expressed here belong solely to The Buzz, and are not necessarily shared by the newspaper.

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