There are many cities which have a lot of old buildings and infrastructures. They are not suitable for people to live in modern society, so they require either protection or reconstruction.

One problem is, the cost of maintaining the old towns may pose a financial burden on governments. Most of the architecture in old cities is made of wood which is easy to corrode. It takes lots of time and cost to preserve them well. Besides, some cultural sites with historical significance used traditional methods to build up. It needs the advice of professional architectures and has a high requirement of workers. These are at great cost hence give pressure to public finance.

Another problem caused by the old cities is that citizens find it hard to enjoy convenient and modern living conditions in those areas. For example, due to the outdated urban planning and building skills, old buildings do not have a complete infrastructure system like new buildings do. Many of them have an unqualified drainage system and people even need to go to public lavatory. Without a decent quality of life, the city will find it difficult to attract talents to stay.

There are two ways to deal with the problem. For some historic buildings endowed with beauty and cultural value, they can be planned as tourist attractions to make profits. The tourism revenue can not only stimulate the development of tourist industry as well as make up the cost of maintenance, but also protect the traditional culture. For buidings with little cultural value, they can be torn down to make way for the construction of new buildings to suit modern people’s need.

It is true that old towns which are not livable for modern times are costly and troublesome to deal with. But with the effort of maintaining or rebuilding, we can raise the economic value of historical buildings.