The historical district is formed during a long time of the city development. It contains special architecture and human landscapes. With the process of urban modernization，the historical district imminently needs renewal by improving the building quality, repairing the space environment in order to protect the cultural information in the historical district. Historical district renewal is a most popular topic in the urban development in China. Nowadays many historical districts are going to be rebuilt. Among all the cultural, social and economic factors, the cultural continuity does not as obvious as economic or social reflection, it is easily forgotten. This paper is seeking for the combination among the urban cultural elements, the special conditions of historical district and the theory of the sustainable development based on the analysis of problems existing in the historical districts. It is important to describe the sustainable renewal from the aspect of cultural continuity in the historical district. Based on the sum-up experience of the case studies, this paper tries to classify the renewal to different types and see the different cultural performance in those types. The theoretical tools and case studies are all taken into the paper to give the final suggestion to continue cultural elements in the historical district renewal. Finally, this paper gives a new attempt to create a residential area for elderly people after the analysis and discussion.

The historical district renewal is really a large research field that includes different kinds of factors. Each renewal is a competition of those factors. When we want to continue the culture in the historical district, we cannot ignore those factors. This paper firstly studies the definition of urban culture, historical district, sustainable development, and then focuses on researching the performance of cultural continuity in the historical district renewal combined with the sustainable development theory. After that, this paper chooses four different types of renewals to research the situation of cultural elements after the renewal. Finally, this paper analyses different types of the renewals, gives the suggestions to the renewal according to the case studies and comes up with a new attempt of elderly residential areas. Generally speaking, according to research of this paper, building, spatial fabric, local resident and local feature are the most important elements in the cultural continuity. If the district renews around these elements, the culture will continue well in the historical district. Political, economic, cultural, historical and other factors affect the historical district renewal and decide the future of the district. There is still a long way to research the application of sustainable development and other methods which could be used to help the cultural continuity in the historical district renewal.