For example, if a developer cannot demolish a historic building, well, why not build around it then?! In this case, the heritage structure might still stand, but the aesthetic and ambience is destroyed.

Buildings become abandoned for many reasons, like increase in rental, structural safety (due to nearby development), changes in traffic flow, forced eviction or unfair competition from newly developed facilities, like malls. You name them. Once a building is vacated, rot sets in and it is deemed a threat. If no effort is made to revive it, it's a goner.

Also, I don't think there exists, in Malaysia, conservation guidelines to protect the streetscape and urban context in areas deemed to contain a high level of cultural significance, heritage or otherwise.

Active public consultation between Council and citizens (unlike in Europe) prior to implementation of facilities, beautification plans, traffic, development, changes to the cityscape and what not, do not exist. If it did, YTS Market might still be standing.

Although I would like to think that Ipoh's YTS, the wet market and the cinemas are rich in cultural significance and should be preserved or adaptively reused without altering the architecture or the interior, the city fathers may not agree.