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NewsChina http://new.newschinamag.com/newschina/articleDetail.do?article_id=2414 [newschinamag.com] is running an article titled, "The Walking Dead - The lack of public sport facilities and sites have seen a growing number of urban residents take to public roads for exercise"

It seems that with all the new urban construction in China, they haven't built sidewalks, parks or sports fields. Meanwhile, people that want to walk for exercise have banded together in groups and take to the streets for lack of anywhere else to walk. These are not small groups -- one founder started in 2010 with a few friends and by 2015 his group had grown and split many times...10,000 people were engaged in group walking in Linyi city.

We may think that groups of road cyclists are blocking the roads in a few places, but walking in China appears to be in a whole different league. Some groups taking a lane have been run over by cars (there is a picture in the article that purports to show this) and other groups banned.

While there are rules for the amount of open/park space that is supposed to accompany new developments, the rules are widely ignored. Apparently developers in China are no different than anywhere else, only looking out for the buck (or yuan). Further, public parks are often occupied by large groups doing taichi or dama (dancing--primarily middle aged women).

Just another reason that I'm happy to be living in the rust belt. This city was designed with parks and other green space for something like double our current population. Lots of public space.

Note to Editor: I tried to quote directly from the NewsChina article, but the page won't let me highlight and copy -- are there any clever people here that can explain this (I'm too tired tonight to research further). Maybe you don't have this problem and can add a couple of quotes to the summary.

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