The other day I promised to take a picture of the traffic on Beijing’s Third Ring Road during rush hour, so here it is. Yes, it’s a crummy shot, and I agree that the traffic isn’t that bad, but today is Friday (when traffic is usually much worse) so I might try to take another picture tonight. The important point I’m trying to make is that a decade ago almost none of these cars were here. (Sales of privately owned family vehicles rose from just 640,000 in 2000 to 3.1 million in 2005.)

This is the eastern part of the Third Ring Road, and I’m looking northeast. (I have a corner office about 20 stories up). The tall building in the upper left of the photo is Jingguang Zhongxin, a very early skyscraper in Beijing. This part of the city used to be almost completely bare except for Jingguang Zhongxin and GuoMao (China World Trade Center), but now there are dozens of tall buildings here, filled with people, many of whom unfortunately choose to drive to work.