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Why doesn't the USA look like the largest economy in the world when I travel there? China's top cities look even more advanced than American

The United States sold China their skylines, they buy their beautiful skyscrapers from us.
The three tallest skyscrapers in Shanghai are Jin Mao, World Financial Center, and Shanghai Tower.:
This kind of super-tall skyscraper architectural expertise is globally dominated by American architecture firms. Note that, other than the Oriental Pearl Observation Deck, these three buildings tower above all others in the Shanghai skyline. Most of the rest of Shanghai are much shorter, much simpler background buildings.
These three comprise the defining “signature towers” of Shanghai’s skyline.
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Shanghai Tower:
Let’s look at Shanghai Tower, the world’s second tallest building. It was designed by Gensler of San Francisco. And like virtually all commercial buildings, it was designed using AutoCad software, which also happens to be based in San Francisco. It’s the industry standard, used by most all firms. The elevators are Mitsubishi, they were shipped in from Japan (they’re the fastest in the world). The world’s largest elevator company is Otis of Connecticut, but alas, they lost out on all three of these contracts.
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Shanghai World Financial Center:
Then there is the Shanghai World Financial Center, designed by the New York offices of Kohn Petersen Fox. It was originally to have had a circular hole in the top with, I kid you not, a one loop rollercoaster in it. But that was too expensive. It was cheaper to build with a square hole, so the developers asked them to change the design to cut costs. For this one Toshiba of Japan designed the elevators.
Here’s a computer rendering of the original World Financial Center design:
Kohn Petersen Fox also designed the Hudson Yards development, the largest real estate development in NYC history, and currently still under construction (Otis did get that elevator business). I hear a lot of people say, “Hudson Yards looks a bit Chinese,” a little ironic, given KPF has defined so many Chinese skylines, including Hong Kong (with a little help from César Pelli in Connecticut).
Still, the World Financial Center‘s square cutout didn’t turn out too shabby:
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Jin Mao Tower:
Jin Mao Tower was designed by Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM), headquartered in Chicago.
SOM is most famous for designing more skyscrapers than any architect firm in the world, including their hometown’s Sears Tower (as well as the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa, in Dubai). For Jin Mao Tower, Mitsubishi of Japan won the elevator business again.
The new rise of China has been a wonder of our modern age.
When Chinese engineers began construction of the Oriental Pearl TV / Radio Tower & Observation Deck in 1991, on the industrial side of Huangpu River, there was nothing there but Communist era factories.
The future site of the Shanghai skyline, looking across from the “old city” only 30 years ago:
China built rapidly mostly by partnering with American companies, to provide manufacturing, leveraging their low cost labor. They have a huge, almost unlimited labor pool.
Most of the Chinese still live in the interior, and remain some of the poorest people in the world.
But that’s changing.
For now, the coastline has developed into a bustling modern metropolis, and they can afford to buy the best skyscrapers U.S. architects can design (with the fastest elevators Japan can sell).
Most IP is developed here in the States. Apple designs their computers and iPhones—from their processors, their industrial design, their software all in the U.S.—buys screens from Korea, other components from Israel and Taiwan… with final assembly done in China, because labor is still very economical.
China’s next struggle will be building up a substantial domestic consumer market and moving higher up the value chain, in order to keep momentum, as their growth has begun to slow.
As for the U.S., we’ve invested too much in war, and neglected domestic infrastructure. This needs to change.

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