Urban village (China)

However, many villages have designated areas at their core which house cultural facilities and examples of historic architecture, while others have special shopping and market streets, sometimes reserved for pedestrians.

For rural residents, the state assumes no responsibility toward the services and thus leave a certain amount of autonomy for the local community, in the unit of a village, to organize their own resources.

Consequently, the villages become de facto independent kingdoms, outside of urban planning, infrastructure construction, and other forms of administrative regulations and public policy.

Combined the convenient location to access job opportunities in the city and cheap rental price per person, urban villages become hubs for the low-income transient population, including rural migrant workers, poor college students, and blue-collar professionals.

Such complex composition of demography and the heightened demand for affordable housing in the city restrain authorities from any plans to rapidly remove urban villages, fearing possible negative social effects and instability.

The varying degree of regulation from the local governments and the large profits at stake for developers had led to instances of forceful and violent eviction in the past, targeting "nail households" (钉子户) that disagree with the compensation or refuse to move from their ancestral land.

In addition, the mixed urban-rural nature of urban villages prevents government to supply public services to residents in the area effectively.

Additionally, the residents living in urban villages are faced with limited public resources, such as the lack of sports facilities and green space.

Real estate developer seeks profits in redevelopment, good collaboration with local government, and a socially responsible branding image.

This approach treats urban village as a negative or unnecessary emblem of the historical past of the city and reinforces the social stigma of the area.

The Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture exhibition hosted in Shenzhen March 2018 also proposed a new lexicon to describe the relationship between the city and urban villages as "symbiosis".

Since 2005, the government has decided to renew specific areas of Baishizhou, which consistently makes the immigrants living in the village worry about their continuous stay in the city.

However, the planning bureau of Shenzhen finally launched an urban regeneration proposal in June 2017, indicating a new era of development in Baishizhou.