To make way for pedestrians and improve traffic conditions, the
city government of Guiyang, capital of southwest China's Guizhou Province, removed thousands of
profit-making booths, including 42 newsstands from the city's
sidewalks in 2001. From then on, city residents had to buy
newspapers and magazines from unlicensed floating newspaper
sellers, or from?six distribution stores inside the city's
post offices.
Statistics from the local post office show that Guiyang City
has?six districts and a population of 2 million. The city
needs at least 100 newsstands, providing that each one serves
20,000 people.
After the city banned newsstands along city sidewalks, floating
newspaper hawkers soon became an important source of newspapers and
magazines for local residents.
Liu Jing, an employee who works inside the provincial
government, said: "I can barely find a place to buy newspapers when
it rains." Wandering newspapers peddlers always sell popular
newspapers and magazines. Liu has to search out many different
places in order to buy all of her favorite professional magazines
and weeklies.
In the last?seven years, local postal departments and
provincial political advisors have never stopped applying for and
proposing to set up licensed newsstands along the pavement, but no
substantial progress has yet been made.
"The urban planning bureau supports the construction of postal
newsstands but they cannot be built on city pavement," Chief
Engineer Wei Dingmei of the Guiyang Urban Planning Bureau told the
Beijing News.
In 2004, the city government approved?three pilot
newsstands. In 2006, the city government decided that newsstands
could be built inside communities instead of on the sidewalks. On
October 23, seven newsstands were built in different communities.
At present, the city has only 16 officially approved newsstands,
including?six distribution stores in post offices.
Written material provided by the city urban planning bureau
claimed that Guiyang is a city located in a mountainous area with
limited land for construction use. The old urban area covers only
about 40 square kilometers, but contains a population of 1.5
million. Hence, the population density is "rare in the country if
not in the world."
The dense population has created a lack of infrastructures and
service facilities. Most of roads and streets in the city are
relatively narrow, and per capita road space is limited. Booths
along city sidewalks would affect the traffic.
Hou Nan, Vice Director of the city's Publicity Department,
announced that a plan guaranteeing the flow of traffic and tidiness
of the streets, while simultaneously adding convenience to the
lives of local residents, is still to be worked out.
(China.org.cn by Zhang Yunxing, December 26, 2007)