based on your various recommendations i finally found a good workable solution without having to compromise that much with my early tsql code in the views. i stayed with my first tqsl as follow:

Stuff

(

(

Select ',' + City As [text()]

From #tempCityState

Where State = t.State

For Xml Path('')

)

, 1, 1, ''

) As Cities,

Please note this is part of a view that is used in a stored procedure that feeds an asp.net gridview

i made this adjustment in my stored procedures:

Replace(ViewName.Cities, ',' , '

') AS Cities

then after i added the HtmlEncode="False" property recommended by Sean in the BoundField.

by using this solution i didn't have to review rows concactenation tsql code(s) i have in several views and as a result affect others sto proc and frontends that connect to my sql server database.

To conclude i resolved my formatting problem by adding one additional property in my gridview boundfield and slightly adjusted a specific stored procedure that is only used by the asp.net application

Thanks to all who have contributed in this thread ... i think the topic can be closed now .. happy week end