Over the weekend, Beijing began celebrating the 850th anniversary of its first establishment as the capital of the country.

At the same time, a media discussion about Beijing's poor transportation, triggered by serious traffic jams caused by the rain last week, has not yet faded away.

Though not the country's oldest city, Beijing is, no doubt, one of its most modernized cities. And it is facing the same problems faced by any other big city, one of them being traffic congestion.

Beijing has a rich heritage handed down by its glorious past. And this diverse heritage is the rich soil that has given birth to the city's current prosperity.

A city having a history of more than 3,000 years, Beijing takes pride in its past, one indication of this being a great birthday celebration.

But when it faces problems as a metropolis, the past becomes a burden to some degree.

There are many of the opinion that Beijing needs more roads to ease its traffic tie-ups.

But the outcry for protection of buildings of historical significance was already loud when a broad avenue was driven through the heart of the southern part of the city several years ago.

It is almost impossible for a new road not to require the removal of some ancient buildings in the city.

So the question is how to build a road at reasonable cost while at the same time leaving ancient buildings intact, and how to determine which buildings are worth saving.

This is only one of the conundrums the city's planners face.

The art of achieving a balance between retaining the treasures of the past and the promotion of growth is not a new challenge.

But few of the country's cities have mastered such an art in any kind of satisfactory way.

In a forum which was part of Beijing's birthday ceremony, Wu Liangyong, a leading architect, announced that a strategic plan has been worked out so that Beijing can strike a balance between construction and protection of "history."

Details of the plan are as yet unknown, so we can only say that Beijing is seeking a solution to the difficult question and will have to wait and see whether it works or not.

However, since Beijing is the country's capital and one of its most important cities, what is done here will certainly be looked at by other cities around the country that are facing the same problem.

(China Daily September 23, 2003)