Scarcity In Everything

Excess demand for bench space in Chinese parks has resulted in an innovate new way to allocate the scarce good.

Park officials in China have found a way to stop people from hogging their benches for too long - by fitting steel spikes on a coin-operated timer. If visitors at the Yantai Park in Shangdong province, eastern China, linger too long without feeding the meter, dozens of sharp spikes shoot through the seat. The spikes are too short to cause any serious harm - but long enough to prevent people from sitting on them comfortably.