The old year is gone, and the people who do such things have summed up the accomplishments and mistakes of the past 12 months. When time is neatly corralled into one-year blocks, it is easy to do this. News stories often cite statistics that pit the first so-many-months of this year against the same period last year, etc. In fact, news stories are often full of numbers - rate of growth, per cent of change, average increase, estimated value, projected loss, number of units - it's as if we measure our worth only by numbers, and then only in relation to other numbers.

One number that seems to have generated a lot of interest is the Forbes magazine report that named Shanghai fourth in China as far as favourable business environment is concerned. Apparently, most people-in-the-know were pretty sure Shanghai was first in this and just about everything else in China. They go about now with their brows furrowed, trying to figure out where things went wrong.

Being first seems to be an obsession in China, so naturally Shanghai wants to lead in that also. We want to have the biggest, the tallest, the most expensive, the first, the only...

It looks as if Shanghai is going to have to take a back seat to a few other cities for awhile in terms of desirability for investment while it tends to the many problems created in its rush to develop into China's biggest and best city. Traffic jams, overloaded infrastructure, over-population and skyrocketing real estate prices are just a few of the problems brought on by the rush to become number one.

The leading edge of investment, always looking for the biggest and fastest profits, will gravitate to places where these problems don't yet exist. In turn, it is only a matter of time before life in the new number one turns topsy-turvy as the same problems develop.

Being fourth gives us the chance to take a deep breath and take stock of what has happened and figure out what to do next. The city government seems to have a pretty good idea of the big picture, but Shanghai residents need a chance to emerge from the hard-hat mentality brought on by the push for massive development. Just like New Yorkers, Londoners and Parisians, they need to figure out ways to cope with extremes - of heat, dirt, pressure from work and family, too many people in too little space, short tempers, blocked views, constant noise and light, and too many choices. Now they do that while sitting in their cars in freeway traffic jams, imagining the joy of escaping the biggest and best city in China to enjoy the peaceful atmosphere and clean air of a place investment hasn't yet found.