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The city of Hangzhou is another example. Located a few hours drive from Shanghai, it’s considered one of China’s jewels and deservedly so. A beautiful, modern city, it features the summer palace of one of the Song emperors. The emperor was a renowned practitioner of Feng Shui. Feng shui is like an ancient form of urban planning grounded in the principles of Daoism. The Song emperor placed his palace next to an incredibly beautiful lake, Shihou Sui, and organized his palace and its grounds according to a balance of elements and flow of chi, or energy.

Nowadays, there is a lovely walking path along the lake that meanders around its edges like a river. When I walked that path with Helen and friends, a lot of the tension in my body melted away. It was fascinating. It would be interested to know to what degree modern urban planning in China has been influenced by Feng Shui. Certainly, in the early 20th century, the city fathers of Shanghai took Feng Shui so seriously they blocked the construction of a canal by the British believing it would cut a flow of chi critical to the city’s prosperity. While the People’s Republic of China is officially secular, it continues to endorse traditional practices like acupuncture and tai chi that rely on Daoist concepts.

Perhaps the livability of Chinese cities was also due to cultural attitudes and mores. Visiting China was like being in a vast wave pool of humanity. Everyone moved calmly with the waves. They were used to it. This was a revelation coming from Edmonton, a city set in the prairies of Western Canada. In Edmonton, the skies are wide, and the folks are few. You could literally see people approaching you on sidewalks like dots on the horizon. When I left Edmonton in the 1990’s, it boasted the most park space per capita in North America, the most mall space per capita, and perhaps most enigmatically, the most Ford Mustangs. Oh Edmonton. At the same time, Edmonton and the provinces of western Canada are young so their civic cultures are newer, more open, and less defined. By contrast, China has much older civic cultures that are long accustomed to dense urbanism.