Bus stops here: Shanghai lets riders design their own routes

China is the only modern country that has both the capability and the lack of bureaucracy to just do things like this. It's simultaneously amazing to see and a depressing reminder of how badly western societies are crippled by rules of their own making. It would take years to make a single new bus route in any city, I don't think I've ever even seen that happen.

> China is the only modern country that has both the capability and the lack of bureaucracy to just do things like this

Habibi, come to the UAE or Qatar

Excuse my ignorance, but don't UAE/Qatar mostly use it to build malls and vanity projects? That's at least the media stereotype I have.

There’s no shortage of malls in UAE, but also there’s fantastic infrastructure — great roads, a metro system, a country-wide rail system (open for cargo, opening for passengers soon). As for “vanity projects”, the Palm and both Burj’s are commercial projects that are also highly successful tourist draws. I can see an argument that the Abu Dhabi branches of the Louvre and the Guggenheim could be seen that way, but I think it’s fairer to see them as cultural investments.

I guess I see the unfinished projects as being the proof: The World and the 2nd Palm haven’t been finished because they (I assume) stopped making commercial sense to the developers.

I would finally note that Dubai specifically has little oil and gas wealth. Maybe 1% directly and 10% that comes as subsidy from AD which has plenty. The rest is literally just a combination of smart and commercially savvy governance combined with an essentially unlimited amount of desert to build in.

It sounds a bit like Singapore.

Except Singapore no longer has a large amount of jungle to build on.