Time for a Make Over

A few years ago I traveled to Beijing and Shanghai. I was writing a book on China's youth market with co-authors Cynthia Chan andLiAnne Yu (it's titled China's New Culture of Cool and it's still carried by Amazon). The day I arrived in Shanghai I told my friends I felt as though I had landed on the set of the Jetson's. The city has such a futuristic presence, I fully expected to see flying cars darting from one high rise to the other. 

As I read news of the need for the US to invest in its failing infrastructure, I can't help but think of Shanghai's beautiful skyscrapers, the high-speed MagLev train, and the general appreciation among the Chinese population for progressive government investment. I'm not naive on this subject--I fully understand the problems China faces over the next decades particularly in its non-urban areas, but I'm confident in comparing them to the US on the topic of infrastructure investment. We are like the once stylish woman who stopped buying new fashions and failed to mend the ones she had. We show up in scuffed boots; our underwear is torn, our hem is uneven and there are sweat stains on our once luxurious silk shirt. Our Chinese counterpart is decked out in Stella McCartney, she has several pair of Louboutin shoes and she's happy to discuss her plans for wardrobe expansion.

We need a make over from head to toe--a civic one--and it needs to be designed and directed by someone other than an Alaskan senator with a penchant for handouts. I hope President-elect Obama has a good stylist on board.