Wu Guangqiang

    LITTLE news about Shenzhen’s urban villages is heartening. Even though I have hardly ever set foot in any of them, intensified media coverage has impressed me with such a gloomy picture: rambling clusters of buildings — many of which are so close to each other that they are dubbed “kissing buildings” — unsanitary conditions, and worst of all, rampant burglary, drug abuse and trafficking, prostitution, organized crime and even murder. Add to this the issue of runaway illegal buildings that make headlines almost every day.

    For Shenzhen, an internationally renowned metropolis, urban villages are like a scar on its beautiful face. It’s not only painful, but impedimental to the city’s further development.

    The formation of urban villages dates back to the early stage of the development of Shenzhen Special Economic Zone in the early 1980s. What we call urban villages today used to be real villages inhabited by real farmers or fishermen. Due to the nature of the property rights of these private houses and the relatively higher costs of compensation for requisitioning and resettling the dwellers, Shenzhen’s early planners and developers steered clear of such residence spots. Instead, they concentrated on the development of areas out of the villages. The ensuing breathtaking urban expansion soon left these villages surrounded by skyscrapers, making them “isolated islands” in the “sea of concrete buildings.” Today, in total, there are 241 urban villages in Shenzhen, inhabited by about 2.15 million people.

    The unprecedented growth of Shenzhen has defied any planner’s foresight, however keen it might be. In the 20 years after the establishment of the special zone, Shenzhen’s population multiplied by 50, and the urban area by 10. About 60 percent of the 6 million migrant people live in rented units, of which about half in urban villages. Urban villagers rose from rags to riches almost overnight by renting their vacant houses to tenants. Their desire for more profits keeps spurring them to build more illegal buildings, thus bringing about more problems.

    The government may have made a mistake when it left the responsibility of administration of urban villages to the latter after the former had obtained the land. Urban village administrators have to feed their villagers. In addition, they have to take care of everything else on their premises: infrastructure, public service facilities, social welfare, social order and security, and even family planning. Obviously, insufficient resources and incompetence in management have resulted in the current mess-up. We can’t place the huge responsibility of managing millions of unorganized people on the shoulders of untrained people with limited resources.

    That’s why we are exposed to constant reports of negative news about urban villages. On Oct. 20, 2010, a pregnant woman came to an illegal clinic in an urban village in Bao’an District to deliver her baby. In the end, both the mother and the new born baby died there. Such cases are by no means rare: Since most residents in urban villages are low-paid and not covered by any form of medical insurance, they have to patronize such illegal clinics. Other headaches include education of migrant workers’ children, fire hazards, and so forth.

    The solution to the long-standing problem is not an easy one. But it must be dealt with without any delay. On Dec. 1, 2010, the city government approved Proposals on Promotion of Urban Upgrade, a policy paper for urban renovation. According to the document, by 2015, the transformation of urban villages within the old boundary of the special zone will be basically completed. Hopes are high for the success of this arduous task.

    In my opinion, the key to success lies with two factors. One is the institutional change of urban villages, that is, transforming them from rural collective ownership to State ownership like other property of the city. The other is to hand all administrative functions over to the government, and to incorporate the management of urban villages into the overall system of the city.

    Hopefully, before long, the disturbing urban villages will blossom into elegant, charming communities.

    (The author is an English tutor and a freelance writer. He can be reached at jw368@163.com.)