The paradox of urban villages
Salute to "no villages"
Proclaimed with much fanfare in 2004, Shenzhen became the first Chinese city to rid itself of villages—on paper, at least. This legal erasure was heralded as China's great leap into affluence and modernity. Yet, as one scrutinises the Shenzhen tableau, replete with urban villages, it becomes abundantly clear that the state-sanctioned urbanisation has not obliterated but rather amplified the tension between the rural and the urban.
In Shenzhen, what are colloquially termed "urban villages" are in reality urban neighbourhoods that have metamorphosed from their rural settlement origins, shaped by the collectivism of Mao's era and subsequently reforged by the swift industrial urbanisation during the post-Mao reform epoch. Mao's era saw the rural as the heart of revolution, with villages literally laying siege to cities. Fast-forward to Deng, and the tables have ironically turned; now, the city annexes the countryside.
In Shenzhen, the development of the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) saw villages subsumed within the ever-expanding urban tapestry. Yet, the dual land and social systems granted administrative villages considerable autonomy, turning them into crucibles for grassroots social engineering.
Marking pivotal moments in 1980, 1992, 2004, 2016, and 2019, Shenzhen's urban villages have been sites of perpetual transformation[1]. Since the 80s, they became epicentres for Township and Village Enterprises (TVEs), luring foreign investment mainly from Hong Kong. By 1992, the state converted all villages within the SEZ into urban neighbourhoods overnight, erasing their rural status, and turning villagers into citizens -- a process later on extended to the whole Shenzhen region in 2004.
The state-sanctioned conversion from the rural status to the urban status necessarily paved the way for the city-wide top to bottom development plan, since all urban lands legally belong to the state. With the introduction of the “Master Planning Outline for the Redevelopment of Urban Villages (Old Villages) in Shenzhen (2005-2010)”, the mass de/reconstruction of these villages begun so to proceed the entire facelift for Shenzhen which aims to become a global city that at least looks fresh, modern, and aspiring. It was not until the year 2016, the policy was revised to reconsider the balance between the drive for modernisation and the need for affordable housing. As such, while urban villages in the outer district remained on the demolition roster, their inner district counterparts were earmarked for enhancement and assimilation into the urban fabric, without architectural overhauls[2]. By 2019, the “Shenzhen Urban Village (Old Village) Integrated Rehabilitation Master Plan (2019-2025)” [ 深圳市城中村（旧村）综合整治总体规划（2019-2025)] was released, advocating a nuanced urban regeneration strategy that sought to harmonise the spatial integration of urban villages with the preservation of affordable housing options in the metropolis.
Urbanised Villages
The tags (rather like price tags) of 'old', 'village', and 'rural' continue to shadow the urban villages of Shenzhen, as delineated in the 2019-2025 Master Plan. These labels seem to justify a rejuvenation, serving as a genteel nod to usher out the 'old' and invite the 'new'. As Shenzhen marches ahead with its urbanisation, it astutely maintains the 'rural tags' of these urban villages as a tactical manoeuvre, even while seeking to erase their quintessential 'rurality'.
O'Donnell (2008) notes that while villages have been urbanised in a technical sense, they have retained their cultural identities, resisting complete assimilation into the urban milieu. In this theatre, the play of urbanisation and 'ruralisation' takes on complex roles. Notwithstanding the grand metamorphosis of Bao'an county from rustic to Shenzhen Municipality, these villages, whilst altering their façades to the tunes of capitalism, tenaciously clung to their deep-rooted cultural identities. Superficially speaking, we see traditional loupai (楼牌) with villages' names on the one hand and the adjacent international buildings also named after these villages on the other. In essence, what can be done for the future cannot undone the past.
Although the state adeptly transformed the legal and administrative status of these villages and villagers, it stumbled in effacing the cultural ethos that seemed incongruent with the new image of Shenzhen that the state aspires. It's tempting, therefore, to suggest that rampant urbanisation doesn't quite dissolve the rural-urban dichotomy but rather, paradoxically, amplifies it.
De-urbanised Villages
Urban villages as the most dominant architectural form in Shenzhen serve as the last bastions for migrant workers to claim their 'right to the city'. A staggering 10 million souls, nearly half of Shenzhen's populace, find solace in these urban villages. However, in a relentless quest for growth and global city status, each urban village in the central districts has been touched by the hand of modernisation, albeit at the expense of their vibrancy.
By the sultry summer of 2019, as O’Donnell (2021) observes, the poignant echoes of evictions from Baishizhou (the largest urban village in Shenzhen) signalled an end of an era for urban villages. The veracity of this will be revealed in due course. While a few urban villages still dot Shenzhen's central inner districts, they are rather pale shadows of their former selves, co-opted into sites of cultural tourism and regulated consumption, driving a transformation of urban environment and a reshuffling of their inhabitants. The affordable housing once central to Shenzhen has been nudged to the fringes, where urban villages have been relegated to functional, soulless dwelling machines. One might wonder if Lefebvre's centre-periphery analysis could illuminate this evolving tapestry, especially given the enduring tension between Shenzhen's rural roots and its urban aspirations.
Turning to Lefebvre's profound treatise on urbanisation, he suggests that while the city may have lost its traditional essence, it remains the tangible and morphological linchpin of society. He posits that despite the seismic shifts of industrialisation, cities remain as pure forms of centrality, mediating between private lives and the macrocosmic forces of state and capital. The concept of centrality, in Lefebvre's lexicon, serves as a crucible where diverse elements coalesce, generating differential spaces. Yet, the centrality, inherently dialectical, is incomplete without its counterpart – the periphery. It is this relational bond between the core and the fringes defines the urban landscape.
Viewed through this prism, the current Master Plan for Shenzhen's urban villages represents a paradoxical endeavour: it simultaneously urbanises and de-urbanises them. While inner-district villages are assimilated or obliterated to make room for a global city, their outer-district counterparts turn into de-urbanised peripheries. Therefore, whether these peripheral villages are urban or de-urbanised hinges on one's definitional pivot—either their dependence on the centre or their relationship with it.
That said, Shenzhen's urban villages serve as a complex tapestry, threading the contradictory forces within the state-led process of urbanisation. Their ever-changing fate offers a compelling counter-narrative to the simplistic tales of Shenzhen's development.
Footnotes
[1]: See 深圳城中村的时间线 ︎︎︎
[2]: The establishment of the SEZ in areas bordering Hong Kong created an exceptional zone within socialist China. Internal borders and checkpoints were set up to separate the SEZ from the rest of Shenzhen, closer to mainland China. This border was known as "the second line," in contrast to the Sino-British border, referred to as "the first line." The areas between the first and second lines were called "the inner districts" (guannei 关内), comprising present-day Nanshan, Futian, Luohu, and Yantian, while the areas beyond the second line were called "the outer districts" (guanwai 关外).
References
O’Donnell, M.A.
(2008) Vexed Foundations: An Ethnographic Interpretation of the Shenzhen Built Environment.
(2021) ‘Two Decades of Shenzhen Urban Villages’, MADE IN CHINA.