Now retired, Xiao spends her free time picking plastic bottles out of trash. “I get 0.2-0.3 jiao (a fifth of one pence) a piece. One night is enough to cover breakfast for my daughter and her small child,” she says. “The rest of our expenses are covered by my daughter, who earns 3,000 yuan (£342) a month working at a nearby shopping mall.”

The three share a small apartment in Guoxia, one of Shenzhen’s 1,044 urban villages – spaces filled with low-rent, often shoddily built, housing. She is among the hundreds of thousands of low-income, migrant residents who are expected to be displaced over the next few months, as part of the city’s planned “upgrade”.

Xiao was given her eviction notice in June and the family is looking for another place to live. But they are not optimistic.

“Soon, only people with high salaries will be able to live here,” says a shop owner in Guoxia. “Because a lot of people are moving, fewer people are buying things from us. It has been hurting businesses around the village. But what can we do?”

Shenzhen has transformed from a fishing village to high-rise megapolis. Photograph: bingfengwu/Getty Images/iStockphoto

Shenzhen’s rapid transformation from small fishing village to glistening megacity started in 1980, when it was declared one of China’s first “special economic zones”. Heavy investment in construction and the relaxation of communist-era restrictions on industry attracted businesses from Hong Kong and Taiwan, which moved factories to the area to take advantage of the cheap labour flowing in from rural China. Fortunes were bolstered and more factories and migrants followed, as growth continued at breakneck speed.

Today, the skyscrapers that line Shenzhen’s central business district still stand within a short drive of colossal manufacturing plants, but this is changing, as the government seeks to remodel old neighbourhoods. A combination of national and local plans, and directives aim to speed up the city’s transformation towards more white-collar employment.



The city has turned to a handful of private companies for its urban village redevelopment, chief among them being Vanke. The Shenzhen-based Fortune 500 company is working on 33 villages, each with a population of 10,000-30,000. Vanke sees itself as “reimagining urban spaces to provide people with a more comprehensive living experience”.

The policy looks down on the poor and uneducated Anonymous, building manager

The company negotiates with landlords, offering renovations in exchange for contracts that allow Vanke to rent out the apartments for, typically, 10 to 12 years. The company refused to go on the record, but a source close to it claimed the price of its renovated apartments was “in a similar range” to that before renovation.

Sophie Chen, a researcher at the University of Hong Kong’s Housing Policy for Migrant Workers project, disagrees. She estimates the new rents are double or triple the original rates. “The tenants are also asked to pay extra estate fees,” she says, “so it’s impossible for workers who only earn around 3,000 yuan a month to afford them.”

Many residents in the urban villages of Qinghu and Shuiwei – which have already been partly remodelled – say their experience backs her claims. For those who cannot afford the new rents, reactions range from outrage to resignation.

The Foxconn factory in Shenzhen. Workers have accused developers of forcing them from their homes. Photograph: Bloomberg via Getty Images

“I came to Shenzhen 10 years ago to pursue my dream, but every year it gets harder and harder,” says a resident of Shuiwei. “I have already had to move from the city centre to a suburban area. From there I had to move to the urban village. Now the rent in the village is getting higher. Will I have to go back to my hometown?”

A man who manages two buildings in Shuiwei says: “The policy looks down on the poor and uneducated. Many people here have children in the local school. What are they supposed to do?”

They are interested in upgrading industry, so they also want to upgrade ‘the quality of the people’ Eli Friedman, professor at Cornell University

Others are more optimistic. A travel agent who works in Shenzhen’s central business district and recently moved into a renovated apartment in Guoxia says higher rent is a trade-off for necessary upgrades. And another resident says: “It is a big sacrifice, but I believe that it is the price we must pay to become a globalised city.”

Still, the most palpable feeling in the villages is anger. Criticism of the evictions spread through WeChat groups. Workers at the Foxconn electronics manufacturing plant in Shenzhen circulated an open letter accusing the developers of forcing them from their flats and not honouring previous contracts. The situation has even led to sympathetic articles in state-backed news outlets such as the Shenzhen Daily.

The negative media coverage seems to have had some effect. In June, the Shenzhen government released a new redevelopment plan to be implemented by 2035. It calls for 40% of housing to be rented out at market rate, with 20% reserved for “talented people” – the educated “higher-end” population that the state hopes will flock to Shenzhen – at 60% of market rate. An additional 20% will be rented to families who meet an income requirement at 50% of market rate, with the final 20% reserved for those who “provide basic public services … work in advance manufacturing … or are very poor, disabled or with special needs”, at 30% of market rate.

Shenzhen’s redevelopment is not just taking place in housing complexes. In April, city officials demolished 133 informal shops that stood by the south gate of the Foxconn factory and were regular eating spots for its migrant workers. At 8am, just as shifts were changing at the plant, groups of urban management police, known as chengguan, moved in to block vendors from accessing their stalls. Shop owners had little time to prepare, as evidenced by the half-cooked food on their shelves. A few minutes later, an excavator began tearing down the stalls.



The headquarters of Vanke, one of China’s largest property developers. The Shenzhen-based Fortune 500 company is remodelling 33 urban villages. Photograph: loonger/Getty Images

“The basic way to think about what is happening in China’s cities is this notion of upgrading and trying to create more profitable uses for the space,” says Eli Friedman, professor of labour studies and political science at Cornell University. “These urban governments see workers as just another factor of production. They are interested in upgrading industry, so they also want to upgrade, to use their language, ‘the quality of the people’.



“The national new urbanisation plan for 2014-20 makes this pretty explicit, particularly looking at the extra-large cities with an urban district population of more than five million, which certainly includes Shenzhen as well as Beijing. It says specifically that they are to ‘strictly control their population growth’.”



Last year, the Beijing city government conducted a large-scale demolition of migrant neighbourhoods. This took place while the community was still in shock from a fire that killed 19 migrants in the Daxing district, in Beijing’s southern rim. It left many workers homeless in the dead of winter. Images of the eviction and the city’s characterisation of the migrants as “low-end population” led to an online outcry, small protests at government buildings and even some rare negative commentary in state-backed media.

Similar events took place in Guangzhou, where, citing fire safety concerns, the government evicted five garment factories and ordered another 36 to be closed. With workers often living in dormitories on factory grounds, such evictions mean a complete uprooting.

In Shenzhen, two months after the razing of the stalls near Foxconn, the area is being used as a car park. The plaza, previously crowded with migrants, feels barren. The only evidence that shops existed is the occasional shard of glass on the concrete floor.

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