Beijing Vows to Rebuild Old Urban HousesBeijing will complete redevelop some 3 million square meters of run-down urban housing in the next five years, sources from a working conference on urban construction Tuesday revealed.The total area of broken-down houses in Beijing's eight districts amounts to about 7.55 million sq. m. Such houses reach 3 million sq. m in Dongcheng, Xicheng, Chongwen and Xuanwu, the four districts in the downtown area. Some 600,000 sq. m of broken-down houses will be demolished and rebuilt this year in the first stage of the 5-year project, according to Wang Guangtao, vice mayor of Beijing, emphasizing that it is necessary to improve people's living conditions for the city's urbanization drive. Local historic sites and cultural relics will be protected during the renovation process to sustain Beijing's image as a historic city, said Wang. Beijing has earmarked some 40 billion yuan (US$4.8 billion) in demolishing and rebuilding some 4.3 million sq. m of old houses since the late 1980s, and over 200,000 households living in poor areas have moved to better apartments, local resources showed. |
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