Work on 1,474 courtyards in 44 alleys with 9,635 households involved shall be finished by the end of this June, according to the Beijing Municipal Commission of Urban Planning.

For those houses owned by the government, residents don't need to spend a cent for the work, while private house owners have to pay a small amount. The exact amount varies in districts, but is normally several hundreds yuan per square meter.

No traditional houses are to be razed any more and construction of new buildings shall be strictly controlled, noted Kong Fanzhi, director of the Beijing Municipal Administration of Cultural Heritage.

"Beijing boasts a history of 3,000 years as a city and more than 800 years as a capital," Kong said emotionally, "It represents the zenith of city construction in ancient China, in which Hutongs (alleys) and courtyards are the cells. Therefore, the city should be protected as a whole."

How to protect Beijing as an ancient city, or is it necessary to protect it at all, has been under debate by officials and experts for over 60 years, during which fancy buildings mushroomed in the 62.5-square-kilometer area, while gray brick residential houses collapsed before bulldozers in a facelift frenzy, along with the memories they carried down through gener

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