Made you forget it was the smog that made their colors so brilliant, that behind every pretty picture there could be an ugly story.
Now, it serves more as a trap for the smog created by 5 million people, but the peaks also provide the best way to see the city, and the long climb (or, let's be honest, short drive) to the top of the San Cristobal hill is the best way to get an idea of the size of the city.
Last year, Los Angeles had 94 "smog days", when pollutants in the air exceeded federal standards – up from 88 in 2013, according to regulators.
They worry that the smog could fuel dissatisfaction with the government and undermine stability in the capital, as well as affect their own and their families' health.
The slowdown also happens to be helpful in curtailing pollution: China's consumption of coal, a huge contributor to smog as well as to climate-change emissions, fell slightly in 2014 after 14 years of growth.Mr Li's war is especially bloody in Hebei, which is blamed for much of the smog in Beijing.
Shanghai's economic boom has been accompanied by an annual rise of 15% in the number of cars in the past few years, which explains the city's miserable traffic and smog.
Like most of China's booming conurbations, Macau is paying an environmental price; the air is thick with smog and dust, and the Pearl River has transferred some of its pollution to Macau's seas.
And however exacting the EPA's rules are, drafting and implementing them will be a long and uncertain process.The EPA's authority over greenhouse gases stems from the Clean Air Act, which was first passed in 1970 to combat smog.
BACK in the 1970s, when heavy industry went into decline and the smog disappeared from Britain's cities, it seemed like a good idea to clean all those soot-blackened buildings.
WHEN, in 2008, the American embassy in Beijing started publishing a measure of the fetid smog enveloping the capital, China's government protested and ordered the publication to stop.
