In China, the questionable aesthetics of "refining" cities and getting rid of whatever is zangluancha.

By Zhou Wang (assistant professor at Nankai University’s Zhou Enlai School of Government) in Sixth Tone:

First, municipal officials have embraced the need to “refine” the country’s cities. From vast metropolises like Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou to thousands of smaller Chinese cities, the same government-sponsored buzzwords appear: “high-end,” “aesthetically pleasing,” “cosmopolitan.” Chinese urban planners strive to realize socially positive notions of “modern” and “green” cities, and the most successful are recognized by government ministries in a series of competitions. Cities are also eager to earn national awards for being exceptionally clean or “civilized.”

Municipal officials define “refinement” in remarkably similar ways. Typically, it involves inviting a renowned international architect to design a capital-intensive landmark building — say, Zaha Hadid’s Guangzhou Opera House or Meinhard von Gerkan’s Chongqing Grand Theater. Officials may also clear huge public squares in front of municipal government buildings, construct avant-garde statues largely devoid of any local cultural or historical significance, and erect “central business districts” that resemble cut-and-pasted copies of the Manhattan skyline. The natural result of this is cities that are indistinguishable from one another, something that continues to be a source of public complaint.

“Refinement” also means clean urban environments, a sense of order, and standards for the appearance of residences and street advertisements... Urban managers don’t want their cities referred to as zangluancha — a colloquial term used for anything substandard that comprises the characters for “dirty,” “messy,” and “inferior.”...

ADDED: There's a link on zangluancha that goes to "My Mission to Clean Up China’s Atrocious Public Toilets" by the founder of an organization devoted to that mission:

The spectacular mountain views in Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan, seem deliberately designed to provide the greatest possible juxtaposition with the lamentable state of the area’s public toilets. A stone’s throw from the soaring peaks of the plateau, a few rudimentary pits have been dug into the ground, surrounded by ramshackle wooden planks for privacy and protection from the elements. The floorboards groan ominously underfoot, a nerve-wracking reminder of your proximity to an ignominious fall from grace....

Every year, Buddhist ceremonies are held in Garzê, during which the local population explodes from about 10,000 to 200,000 people. The hastily assembled men’s restrooms have no urinals, meaning devotees simply go for a number one outside. By the end of the festival, the whole mountain reeks of urine, and runoff from the soil endangers the local water supply — an environmental problem that is decidedly un-Buddhist.

In recent years, ever-greater numbers of Chinese tourists have visited Japan, a nation that has refined public conveniences into an art form....