The Reconciliation of the Contradictions in the Preservation and Development of Traditional Villages:Refinement of Contradictions through Extenics

There has been a rapid urbanization in China at the expense of agricultural and rural development. Consequently, before 2010 the traditional villages were dying off at the speed of 100 per day. To save the precious culture heritage and avoid the unbalanced development in urban and rural areas, the better approach is to make such villages more liveable through balanced preservation and development. This will motivate vitality and help to achieve long-term sustainability. This work investigates how to apply Extenics ideas and methods to solve the contradictions between preservation and development in Lingshui village, China. It describes contradictions quantitatively with element theory of Extenics in order to define the required extent of change and protection. That is, to modify the sustainability of traditional village to better understand the overall value of protection and development risks and to make informed judgements about the required extent of actions. The paper concludes with recommendations for testing the efficacy of its findings i.e. to use Extenics theory for better, liveble and resilient village environments.