Would you rather visit China or Cuba?

[Beet]

China, although obviously I'm biased.

[Beet]

Making sweeping generalizations about people is racist, making sweeping generalizations about the environment is not.

The metropolitan areas of China are on average a lot dirtier and more polluted than the U.S., so it could be described as "dirty". That's the price they choose to pay (for now) for producing 58% of the world's cement and 48% of the world's steel. They decided it was better to get cancer but be rich than to be cancer free but poor. Life's trade offs. The U.S. made a very similar one actually, in the 20th century. Now we've outsourced our pollution to China. We get their stuff, while they get the pollution and promissory notes from us printed by the Fed. Pretty good deal for us, IMO. Now if we could only figure out how to distribute some of that gain to the poor blue collar stiff whose labor is worth less thanks to it, like they teach you in economics class when university professors try to convince you that free trade is always good and Pareto optimal. That last step always seems to occur only in theory.

I've never been to Cuba, but I have little doubt the air there is better. I suspect in 20 years it'll be much more like China, or more likely a giant tourist trap. Dirtier and more polluted, but a lot richer.