> You can always require historical-looking facades if looks are a concern.

I assume you have actually seen the inside of old buildings with your own eyes.

In no way is the look & feel of the inside of an old building comparable to a modern one.

Yes, old buildings sure have downsides. But pretending nobody looses anything when you only keep historical (or even just historical looking) facades is eyewash.

I bet there are ways for the Portuguese Gvt to encourage renovation of all the dilapidated old style buildings instead of encouraging speculators to wait for them to collapse so they can build new and cheap and with loosing every bit of charm a building can have.

The grandparent does rather seem to want to replace Lisbon with Disneyland.