The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence

[DewDiligence]

Russia needs better infrastructure, evidently:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/04/world/europe/russian-traffic-jam-strands-drivers-for-3-days.html

The…traffic jam—100 miles long by some estimates and involving 10,000 vehicles—trapped some motorists for three days and forced senior Russian officials to go on television on Monday to mollify the thousands of angry drivers.

…Years of underinvestment on Soviet-era infrastructure have left the M10, rarely free of traffic jams on the best of days, prone to nasty bottlenecks in several small towns that lack bypasses. “I left St. Petersburg on Friday and in three days have traveled around 200 kilometers,” or about 124 miles, one driver said on the radio station Kommersant-FM on Sunday evening.

Also see #msg-53690679 about a colossal traffic jam in China during 2010.