It was an old Silver city and the wealth shows in the old buildings. They were all made of pink and orange sandstone and some are simply beautiful. There is a very high percentage of restored buildings here and there are more and more each year since the city clearly knows that a huge percentage of their income is from tourist business... Domestic and Internatioinal.
But not all of the buildings are old... There are quite a few that are recent additions but are done in the old sandstone and they blend in beautifully... Clearly Starbucks and McDonalds are simply not allowed to put up their usual garish modern advertizing fascades etc(City byelaws I assume). Much nicer this way.
Even the suburban sections of the old city (where the tourists dont go) are quaintly "olde worlde" and evoke a strong feeling of old world Europe... mediteranean (Spain Portugal Italy).
We modern North Americans (and Australians too for that matter) dont have towns like this and we just "lap up" the quaint little old streets and European architecture. It has the same effect on me too, but I think I would quite quickly get tired of the "totally paved" world without any areas of grass and precious few trees.
But, Im very happy here for a couple of days before I head onwards :)))
