Few countries in the world are immune to such idiotic city planning. In the US, Philadelphia made way for progress a few decades ago to create the ever-bland Independence Mall. History in a supposed historical city is such a drag. Not to be outdone, China is eager to modernize as well by leveling ten centuries of history in exchange for high rise apartments. Similar programs were implemented even in Beijing in hopes of showing Olympic visitors how modern China is. The idea of preserving history has not quite made it into the little minds of the communist leadership.
It took Philadelphia a while too, so maybe the government will eventually wake up and figure out that people at home and from abroad actually enjoy history. They even embrace it and will pay money to see it. NY Times:
A thousand years ago, the northern and southern branches of the Silk Road converged at this oasis town near the western edge of the Taklamakan Desert. Traders from Delhi and Samarkand, wearied by frigid treks through the world’s most daunting mountain ranges, unloaded their pack horses here and sold saffron and lutes along the city’s cramped streets. Chinese traders, their camels laden with silk and porcelain, did the same.
The traders are now joined by tourists exploring the donkey-cart alleys and mud-and-straw buildings once window-shopped, then sacked, by Tamerlane and Genghis Khan.
Now, Kashgar is about to be sacked again.
Nine hundred families already have been moved from Kashgar’s Old City, “the best-preserved example of a traditional Islamic city to be found anywhere in central Asia,” as the architect and historian George Michell wrote in the 2008 book “Kashgar: Oasis City on China’s Old Silk Road.”
