Beijing ranks 8th in satisfaction list

BEIJING - Li Xia finds the question of whether she should drive or take a bus to a suburban outing to be vexing.

Driving, she is afraid, will cause her to be stuck in traffic. Yet, buses to the outskirts of the city are rare.

"It shows that not only is traffic bad, but there are not enough green places," said Li, an anthropologist and a senior editor with the Commercial Press. "If we had 30 places we could go on our outings instead of 10, we could go in several different directions to avoid traffic jam."