A city that never 'fleets'

I met a friend yesterday who told me about their recent trip to Singapore. What I found most interesting was how efficient it is. She heard that every five years the state pays for the exteriors of buildings/homes to be repainted/renovated. I don't know if this is a verifiable fact, but that is irrelevant: the point is Singapore is incredibly well run and efficient, perhaps too efficient? My friend went on to tell me that the city is so good at keeping up with maintenance work and infrastructure development that there are no signs of time passing by, it has no material evidence of its history, of its presence and engagement with time. So they are now considering taking actions that will allow the signs of ageing to emerge in the cityscape. This is an incredibly interesting idea. Time is most visible in its material manifestations: wrinkles on skin, cracks in plaster, dust on surfaces and so on. We see the fleeting nature of time through these things and Singapore seems to be a city that never 'fleets'.
This is quite interesting since, to me at least, preservation seems to be such an important and pressing matter today: there often aren't enough funds or enough time to keep up with all the preservation, maintenance, restoration (and excavation, I suppose) of everything from art and artefacts to documents and buildings that make up our social existence. Not to mention the preservation of 'nature' (whatever that may be - see previous post).