Rural migrants in urban China. Enclaves and transient urbanism
Abstract
After millions of migrants moved from China's countryside into its sprawling cities a unique kind of 鈥榠nformal鈥� urban enclave was born - 鈥榲illages in the city鈥�. Like the shanties and favelas before them elsewhere, there has been huge pressure to redevelop these blemishes to the urban face of China鈥檚 economic vision. Unlike most developing countries, however, these are not squatter settlements but owner-occupied settlements developed semi-formally by ex-farmers turned small-developers and landlords who rent shockingly high-density rooms to rural migrants, who can outnumber their landlord villagers by as much as 20:1. A strong state, matched with well-organised landlords collectively represented through joint-stock companies, has meant that it has been relatively easy to grow the city through demolition of these soft migrant enclaves. The lives of the displaced migrants then enter a transient phase from an informal to a formal urbanity. This book looks at migrants and their enclave 鈥榲illages in the city鈥� and reveals the characteristics and changes in migrants鈥� livelihoods and living places.
Citation
Wu, FuLong; Zhang, FangZhu; Webster, C. (Editors) Rural migrants in urban China. Enclaves and transient urbanism. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, (2013) 316 pp. ISBN 978-0-415-53455-0