I often wonder how the residents of these Chinese cities feel. When I visit my hometown, there are many things that are different, but most of it is generally the same. Shenzhen was basically farmland and a fishing village 45 years ago and now it’s a city larger than NYC. Hard to imagine experiencing that day-to-day.

this looks like a miniature set that a guy in a Godzilla suit is about to obliterate

when we were in CQ a few years ago we found a used bookshop that sold old books by the pound, but they were happy to sell us the one book that we picked out, a tourism coffee table book from the 90s about CQ itself. there are so many great pictures in that book, scenes of a city growing up and developing. barely any skyscrapers but already a lot of those giant highrise 90s apartment buildings.

china in the 90s was a different world. Chongqing still looks somewhat similar, i’m sure Chengdu and Changsha etc are completely unrecognizable

You use the word “unfortunately” … care to elaborate, because I’m not seeing anything unfortunate about this no longer existing, but you posted this, so perhaps you have a different perspective?