Chinese urban architecture of the post_revolutionary period is nothing special, in fact it's ugly, but I think it's a standard style for developing countries-lots of concrete block, squat buildings, half finished construction and /or demolition everywhere, the funkiest of structures abutting the newest and most gaudy,dirt, dust , mud and debris interlaced with pushcart commerce, school kids in uniform, toddlers peeing on the sidewalk, beggars and choosers, but the main streets of this city are very broad, with park like centerstrips and lined for miles with sycamore? trees, whose over-arching branches create a skeletal esplanade in the winter and a lovely green one in the spring and hotter days of summer. Under the trees, a mix of cabs, bikes, three-wheeled and two wheeled vehicles of every description, trucks, buses all execute this impossible tango,where they should be constantly running into each other , but they don't ( for the most part), people on bikes and put-puts glide around obstacles and each other with the insouciance of tropical fish. THere is no such thing as jay=walking,if only because the idea of crosswalks and traffic signals has not really taken hold here, so there are always people walking through the traffic. Unlike, say, Mexico City, the goal here is to avoid hitting anyone else, and it's done everyday by the whole population.Avoiding conflict is very important to Chinese character. OF course, it might be different in Beijing, or Shanghai, Chinses cities are more distictinve in character thatn cities in the U.S. I'm off for Cheng Du Seth from China