In the process of China’s contemporary urban modernization, the fundamental aim of urban environmental design should be to design and construct a livable and more pleasant urban environment to meet people’s various needs in the process of free development and realization of their own values. However, while China’s contemporary urban environment design has made great progress, it also highlights such undesirable tendencies as wantonly destroying the natural ecology and historical sites, blindly imitating foreign styles, and deliberately pursuing visual beauty, which leads to the malpractice of “a thousand cities share the same face” and damages the aesthetic character of the urban environment that people are happy to live in. In order to get out of this dilemma, China’s urban environmental design must renew its concept, correctly understand the connotation of urban modernization, scientifically explore the value of ancient urban design thought and traditional aesthetic spirit in China, take its essence and use it for the present and future so as to design and construct a truly pleasant urban environment.