They paved my paradise

Don't it always seem to go/That you don't know what you got 'til it's gone/They paved paradise/And put up a parking lot - Joni Mitchell Big Yellow Taxi.

Well Joni, the big, open space outside the Landgent Shopping Center wasn't completely paradise. It was right on the corner of the Third Ring Road and Guangqu Lu - with scores, if not hundreds, of vehicles passing by each minute, plenty of honking and the air often thick with smog and grit.

And wasn't exactly unpaved, pristine green space. It was covered with some sort of outdoor granite tiles.