Every city has old buildings. Every year the governments around the world spend large sums of money restoring them. Some people consider this a huge waste of money and they believe the governments’ budget should go to building new houses and roads, while others insist that the restoration of old buildings in cities is well worth the money.

There are a host of reasons why some urban old buildings should not be restored. To start with, the old buildings are no longer suitable for people to live in, therefore they should be destroyed and give way to new buildings so that people, especially young people in the cities have more living spaces. Secondly, the old buildings can cause inconveniences for the city dwellers. Since there is not a direct route through the old buildings, people sometimes have to go to and off work by making a long detour around them, and in this way much of their time is wasted. Finally, the old buildings may give rise to safety problems. More than 100 people, for example, are killed or injured each year in my city, just because of the collapse of some ancient buildings.

Yet old buildings - at least some of them - are significant historically and culturally, and hence should be restored for that reason. They carry some important messages about the city or even the whole nation. The Summer Palace, for instance, is a perfect reminder of how the imperial family in the Qing Dynasty in feudal China were living and so has great cultural significance. Such old buildings, if well preserved, can become tourist spots and attract thousands of visitors from around the globe.

We all need a memory of our past. Many old buildings do have historical and cultural value which tells us who we were. We need to take good care of these buildings and keep them as long as possible, however much money it may involve, so that they can tell the stories of the city or the nation to our future generations. Of course, the money squandered on those old buildings with little value should be used to solve more practical problems such as housing and traffic.

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