ABSTRACT
Shenzhen is a young, migrant city established in 1979 as an experiment of China’s open-door policy. The operation of a market economy in Shenzhen has enabled its astonishing urbanization and economic growth. An emphasis on export-oriented industries has turned the city into a major manufacturing center that continues to attract migrant workers, most of whom were denied a local urban hukou. Shenzhen’s rapid economic growth drives an equally large area where the mass production of the built environment with a certain level of rurality persists along with the presence of pre-existing rural communities (Chung 2014). Spatial expansion of urban land has encroached its rural hinterland, creating 320 chengzhongcun. With urban development surrounding them, chengzhongcun are distributed throughout the city and have become an interwoven component of the urban economy and society (Hao, Sliuzas, and Geertman 2011). Despite the important role of chengzhongcun, the government maintains a negative view of them, claiming that they are associated with physical and social problems, and that their existence suppresses the value of the land where they are located and in their neighboring areas. Consequently, policies have been implemented aiming to solve the ‘chengzhongcun problem’ through a wholesale demolition and redevelopment into formal urban neighborhoods. In 2005, Shenzhen introduced the Master Plan of Chengzhongcun Redevelopment 2005-2010 (Shenzhen Urban Planning Bureau 2005), which was the first official move to demonstrate the determination of the government to halt the further development of chengzhongcun (Chung 2009). The move also made Shenzhen the first Chinese city that adopted a set of systematic policies to implement a ‘comprehensive’, all-out full-scale chengzhongcun redevelopment.
