Pragmatism should prevail when it comes to land use

In the article, "Be it Singapore or Wakanda the world's best cities embrace and build on their past" (June 24), the authors talk about South-east Asia's cities, including Singapore, facing challenges in balancing the past and the future, that "rampant urbanisation has come at the expense of the region's architectural richness and cultural fabric".

However, my view is that a small city like ours should place practicality above idealism. We must be efficient in land use and this supersedes sentimentalism.

Hence, it is right that we have tried to only conserve the past whenever it is possible or pragmatic to do so.

Anyway, what is done is done and there is no point crying over spilt milk, although it does not mean heritage is not important.

Our coastline is limited. Even if we had preserved "the wooden homes with their gabled roofs, built on stilts" that the authors talked about, it would not look authentic if no one is living there.

All we can hope for is to try to preserve our cultural heritage in terms of observing cultural events among the different ethnic groups here.

A revival of interest among the young in Chinese operas or Malay wayang kulit, for example, should also be done to try to preserve heritage. Infusing or creating modern characters for such traditional shows may help their appeal to the young today.