Shanghai Longtangs

I love this picture, because while their time may be limited in the new China, the longtang or alley, is an oft seen phenomenon, and they also have a much more urban landscape (see the skyscraper in the background?  That is the norm, not the exception).  The old ways mixed in with the new.  These alleyways bustle with activity.  The comings and goings are frequent, but the longtang forms a neighborhood of sorts, a community that is not the same as what you would have if you moved into and apartment building.
The thing that I do not know is how does a person rate such a dwelling, versus those that live in more modern but also more congested apartment buildings.  I would be far happier myself living with less newness and more tradition. Here, amidst China's impressive surge of urbanizing its population over a very short time period, there are still vestiges of the way things used to be in the 1930's heyday of Old Shanghai.