Gentrification during the Redevelopment of Urban Villages in Shenzhen, China

Developing countries have witnessed unprecedentedly rapid urbanization process, whereas we are worried to see that most of the urbanization happened in the form of urban sprawl. It is the situation in most fast growing cities that on the one hand, urban land is expanding into rural areas without control; on the other hand, many distressed inner urban sites are left unused. During the new stage of urbanization, massive urban expansion is no longer encouraged, replaced by more sustainable and intensive utilization of urban land. Nowadays large scales of urban redevelopment have been taking place in China. Among which the redevelopment of urban villages has received substantial attention. Urban village is a unique phenomenon due to China’s dual land system and residence registration system. Within urban areas, urban villages have unique social functions by providing low-rent housing for large amounts of low-income rural migrants. Under the risk of losing low-rent houses, the redeveloping activity will affect these migrants significantly. Right now in China, Shenzhen has become a leader among all the cities in the field of urban renewal, of which an important part is the renewal of urban villages. Owing to rapid urbanization on one hand and limited land resources on the other, Shenzhen has encountered unprecedented development bottleneck. Taking Shenzhen as a study area, this article investigates the gentrification process during the redevelopment of urban villages. The mechanism of gentrification, as well as the cause and effect of gentrification are analyzed based on typical case studies.