It's a big contentious when u talk about history of any city, whether is rome, paris, tokyo, new york...wanted to spend some time research for E-commer's project last night, one of the google link led me to a Youtube video, been fucking around on youtube since then...

     the video showed beijing's 2007 urban development plan,  the city is losing its so-called traditional value, lots of old hutong area had been restored with high-scaled villas, in traditional courtyard style. some hutong residence were changed to commercial areas and western architecture concept is merging in to replace the city's landmark - 70's soviet style apartment complex...

     if u ever been to beijing, u probably will remember the city’s oldest pedestrian district, once was flourished with hutong, migrant merchant, and “lao beijing” (people who lived their through generations) wangfujing area, has successfully turned into a massive commercial shopping block. without considering the historical value it preserves, many of its surrounding neighborhood, its in a state of flux in decision. obviously, the most "ideal" situation would be to leave it as is...but the fact is, the matter of talking about beijing, ,toronto, new york, hongkong, or any world city that is undergoing economic development naturally is govern by market forces, and what that often means is: changification. so u want to preserve this as is the whole piece, that's simply not realistic right now in beijing...

     we wanna preserve history, we wanna renovate back to the past. but u always have to ask yourself, what past are we going to renovate back to? because beijing has so much history you can sink a shovel and dig up something that is older than america itself, if the government wants to replace these hutong with “lao beijing” style: grey bricks, tile roof, and red accent on the wood. certainly they have architecture values, because they are late qing dynasty - republican era restructures... but aside of that, what's more important? what's more valuable being lost? what's priceless that being lost, it's this community texture, a non-american way of life, not depend on the car, entirely sustainable, a close-system neighborhood, very dense with greenery, very dense with humanity on the street... and i think anybody who spent some time in beijing knows the different between going to the lake (houhai) district and coming to dashilar (pedestrian street, near wangfujing), and going to soho (new comdo units)... my interpretation of beijing’s lifestyle is, very chilled, very laid back, ultimate stage of appreciation of life and relaxation. with its family-oriented social climate, there really isn’t anything more valuable and worth considerate other than family and day-to-day living. thus, with these west ideas, value and lifestyle swarming into ordinary beijinger’s life, flooding beijing with steel cold architectures, fast-paced, buzzing-bee liked work attitude, overall theme of “anything-for-money”… beijing has turning into a lonely city... i think rather than fighting over how we gonna renovate the city, its more valuable to maintain this community and this network,  it will reminds people that at one time and while it still is, when you look at the map, beijing, is a mass piece of urban design...

some of the photos of these areas are available in my photo please take a look…