The redevelopment of “urban villages” in Shenzhen, China: A benefit-motivated gambling process

Under the rapid economic growth in China, its cities, especially those in coastal areas, are faced with a wide variety of problems, including the need to redevelop the so-called “urban villages”, a unique phenomenon directly related to China’s distinctive dual land ownership systems. These “urban villages” are caused by factors not similar to those underlying squatter settlements in other developing countries. We try to understand the causes, peculiarities and the process of development of these settlements in China and make comparative analysis between these two categories.
The target city of our study is Shenzhen in Guangdong province. To play a leading role in China’s economic reform and development, Shenzhen is among the first group of Special Economic Zones established in 1980. After more than two decades of break-neck growth, the City is in a critical stage of urbanization and industrial adjustment. This situation forces the city government to consider serious solutions to the problem of redevelopment of “urban villages”.
By probing into processes and consequences of the redevelopment, we carry out a comparative analysis of two “urban village” cases, focusing on how local governments (from the perspective of urban development) and other participants play their roles in a variety of ways. The emerging commonalities among the two include: 1. profits from real estate development are the shared purpose that propelled the whole gamble-like process; and 2. the local governments, master minding the relevant policy-making, are the biggest beneficiary.
Both China’s “urban villages” and the squatter settlements in other developing nations arise from the influxes of surplus agricultural labor lured to cities where economies are growing but governments are unable to provide sufficient affordable housing for huge numbers of low-income families, and both are troubled with problems of fire control, living conditions and public security. However, “urban villages” are distinguished from their counterparts by the villagers’ tightly-knitted family relations, legitimate land-use rights, the demographic composition characterized by dominance of landlord/tenant elements, and the existence of state-authorized administrative establishments.
Finally we turn our attention to the impacts of the redevelopment in urban and social terms. Like its role as a forerunner in China’s economic reform and development, Shenzhen is now under eager observation of other fast-growing cities hoping to learn from its experiences in solving the problem of “urban villages”.