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)