Earlier this summer (it’s still summer, you know…) I had lamented the Beijing urban redevelopment plan that threatened to destroy the old Gulou (Drum Tower) neighborhood of the capital city.  But now comes what appears to be good news:

  Controversial plans to redevelop the historic Gulou Drum Tower
hutong area into a tourism attraction have been placed on hold after
the merger of Dongcheng and Chongwen districts into a combined new Dongcheng
district government.

Extensive plans to “restore” Gulou into something dubbed “Time Cultural City”
by the former Dongcheng district director Yang Yiwen have all been shelved,
according to a government insider who requested anonymity.

“The Time Cultural City is a thing of the past,” an anonymous deputy director
of the new Dongcheng district was quoted as saying in a Beijing Times report
Monday.

Hooray….for now.  I still worry that at some point down the road a big re-development plan will bring out the bulldozers and ruin the integrity of the area.  In the meantime, perhaps a more sensible approach will allow for the improvement of local living conditions while preserving the historical qualities of the neighborhood, something more in keeping with a Confucian perspective:

The Master said: “If you can revive the ancient and use it to understand the modern, then you’re worthy to be a teacher.” 2.11

Don’t just destroy and flatten the ancient in a headlong rush to the modern, but, rather, work from the ancient, preserve it and work through it, as the modern organically emerges from it.