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Maxwell - while there is more conservation in some areas, most notably the home, I think it's important to remember that the growth of industries and new markets are creating an environment where big, cheap and fast is the ultimate goal. The vast majority of westerners moving to China are looking to get rich, not preserve a conservational lifestyle.

Thanks Aaron. Idealizing Shanghai as a "Perfect Little Ecosystem" is far from realistic.

I lived in Beijing and Shanghai for four years in the early 90s and again for a year in 2002-03. I have mixed reaction to the "ecosystem" she describes. It's accurate but I wouldn't romanticize it. That 80 year old woman sweeping your street isn't doing it for fun. And with all the pollution, sweeping up after the bus always struck me as especially odd -- and endless. (I lived with a communal bathroom too. Talk about your ecosystem.)

I used to dream, literally, about driving around in a car in a generic American town some Saturaday morning and dropping off cleaning, picking up groceries, stopping by a hardware store, visiting a friend's sick mom and coming home to pay my bills while the washing machine did it's magic. Something that would take me a full weekend of 8 hour days to do in China.

I don't understand how buying clothes, nail clippers, or dishes from carts rather than from a store conserves anything. What am I missing?

Cant read the article. But I can guess the underlying assumptions. Its as if the person doesnt realize that the minority in the developed world (about 10%) consumes 90% of worlds resources. Our grandparents were the same way- think of your older grand/parents and how they eat old bread and food so it doesnt go to waste. Or reuse stuff till it falls apart. Its only recently that American culture has become so crassly consumerist and wasteful though that tendency has been around for awhile. ( Anyone seen the Cingulair commercial about "old minutes"?).

Its not that people in the developing world are conserving on purpose- its secondary to being poor and being in a resource poor environment. Take a recent trip to Uganda. Ordinary people shop for groceries daily (not everyone has electricity or even generators) at outdoor markets not at the pricey indoor supermarkets that expats use. You have to pay for plastic bags, lower end shoes are made out of tires, most clothes and homegoods are used and come from our Goodwill stores or those bins for used clothes donations you see in parking lots etc. Soda is sold in those recyclable glass bottles. At the same time I would look on in horror when someone would be walking or driving and just chuck trash out the window.

The snippets of the article seem to romanticize Shanghai living.I think we need to just look at the not too distant past in this country or look at how Europeans are much more conservation friendly.

I agree there is a good element of romanticizing the life style in Shanghai but the author did mention the lack of electricity and indoor plumbing among neighbors. The main idea I felt we were pointed to was the lack of wasteful use of goods, that every item was used completely and only discarded when there was nothing left which was usable.

I come from farm people in the midwest, we were quite poor when I was growing up although I never realized it. In my family it was not unusual for my grandmother to bring us clothes she bought at a charitable "rummage" sale and we appreciated what we got! We handed down clothing as a matter of course and wore our stuff until it died. We wore our good/school clothes only at school and immediately changed into home clothes at the end of the day. Granted I am in my mid-50's so perhaps older than many of you. I am appalled everyday with the level of consumerism that has over taken our society. I see this buy something to wear once in my own daughter and it worries me. The media is telling us many times a day to buy the cheapest available because newer better cheap items will be coming tomorrow to replace what we have.

In addition I am increasingly bothered that in this country we are now viewing our labor as too valuable (read that expensive) to produce goods so are importing more and more basic goods. I understand the concept of global economy but what about self substance? What will the future bring?

Jenny in DC, Most in Shanghai are not driving to the mall or even down the street to get their sundries because people owning autos at all is a fairly new thing.

Maxwell's snip is just a bit from the article. Bike-driven merchant carts or services for knife-sharpening etc coming into your own neighborhood are definitely something reminiscent of a different time for Americans: Specifically, it seems to be like the 'twenties, when auto's were introduced and more people started moving away from farms.

There's a rabid energy there- a feeling of opportunity and change. And yet, you still see the modest, measured and practical habits of living common in those who have scarce times in their not-so-distant memories.