Historically, the city building is an essential representation of our civilization. The design thinking of city building not only states the foundation of social organization but the outline of our mindset. Contemporary design thinking is undergoing tremendous transformation because of the development of information technology, transformation of economic system and cultural atmosphere, and the overall concern about the sustainability issues. The city building which reflects our mindset of our civilization is especially noteworthy. However, contemporary trends in city building receive many criticisms owning to their heavily depending on related goals of economic development, thus seems to put too much resources, talents and energy on marketing and advertising, for various events, fairs, constructions and reconstructions. Some current design thinking seems to direct human being toward some impatient goals. Some seem to concern only for temporary persuasion and conviction. This situation evokes the idea of writing this paper, which tries to retrace historical design thinking of city building, review contemporary cases of city building and look into various issues of current urbanization, thus setting some basic concepts for our minds to settle down for this seemingly impatient new urban environment.
