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Upon first encountering Longyan, one is struck by its appearance. The same holds true for many other cities in the interior of this province, but Longyan is special.

And no, it is not only because of its natural beauty, though the fact that Fujian has the country's highest percentage of forest coverage does score points. To metropolitan urbanites like me, the interesting thing about this city is how it has managed to strike a balance between economic development and environmental protection.

However, it does not take long for this impression to fade.

Just before I left the city, I picked up an in-depth report on Longyan by a provincial research team composed of the top local leaders. One of the first lines read: "Significant work must be done to curb further pollution."

This observation was not just one smirch on an otherwise clean record. In Longyan, farmers make a living chopping down trees. Heavy polluting projects seem to pop up in every corner of the city, and the recetnly developed tourism has driven the local service and real estate industries at a pace that is too fast to benefit most local residents. Many people here live below the national poverty line. Perhaps that's why at night, walking around this traffic-clogged, neon-lit city, I began to miss Guangze county, where there is neither bus nor taxi.

Consider this: The average price of real estate per square meter in Fujian's Nanping city has reached 6,000 to 7,000 yuan. The local monthly income is about 800 yuan. The situation there seems less pressing than in Longyan.

In Longyan, signs stick out in ways that would be familiar to anyone who has visited Hong Kong, but instead of touting tea restaurants and leisure activities, they promote "an elite, premium life" that is distant to the average Joe and Jane, who can hope for nothing better than brief moments of food and fun.

The cradle of the Chinese Revolution has restructured itself into a modern landscape. But there are limits. For example, just steps from the museum commemorating the 1929 Gutian Conference, which laid the foundations for the Communist Party of China and its army, is a dazzling billboard that says "Hawaii KTV". In another part of town, a sign pointing to the "Golden Phoenix foot massage center" sits next to portraits of two police officers saluting passers-by.

As the sound of motorcycles disturbed the night, pieces of modern urban life blended with the older features of this remote ancient city, where traditions are fast fading into the past. Indeed, this is one of the few places where one can still get a sense of nostalgia for bygone eras. But even these remainders of things past seem threatened by the next demands of economic growth, without which progress cannot be made. Much is destined to be lost, never to be regained.