Once you live in Shenzhen, you are a Shenzhener
HISTORY OF SHENZHEN
Appearing of Villages-in-City
Traditional village setting.
Gradual expansion of village housing.
Selling of farm land and development of city.
Beginning of “illegal” village development.
Further expansion of village housing.
Homonogization of villages.
The development of ViCs started by government purchasing large amount of lands from local villagers. Those are usually farm lands because they are relatively cheap compare to residential areas. The villagers also brought in foreign investment from Hongkong through the introduction of their relatives or friends. As more foreign factories started to move into Shenzhen paired with new economic policies from the communist party accelerate the development of the urban city. At the same time, migrant workers started to swarm into the city looking for potential jobs, usually construction or factory workers. The villagers saw their opportunity to transform from farmers who grow crops to realtors who grow buildings, thus the battle between urban villagers and local government has begun.
ViC’s formation through policy changes Goverment took agriculture land for urban development but didn’t touch the residential areas of these villagers because the inability to provide jobs for the vast amount of rural population. Each family occupied a small couryard. Courtyards were often lined up in rows, with streets between them. The government expected villagers would start building house after the SEZ was set up. Provisional Regulation on Village Household House Building and Land Use in the Shenzhen SEZ was issued in 1982. This regulation allowed each household to have a courtyard covering 150 sq meters of land, of which 80 s q meters could be used for housing construction. To benefit from this allowance, villagers soon divided family into small households. Usually with each family member as an individual household to obtain more lands. This means each household can obtain 150 sq meters of land. In 1986, a new and more stringent control was enforced. A limit was set for the height of private houses: No house should be built over three stories. The Average construction floor space should be under 40 square meters per person. The 80 square meters of land permitted for building inside the courtyard should be the projected area of the larges part of the building on the ground. The aim of this regulation was to protect space between buildings and discourage building of excessive size during the period when the city was seeing large scale migration workers from other regions. But villagers saw this as their last chance to occupy land and build houses. The regulation was largely ignored and villagers start to subdivide their housing to fit more migrant workers inside. In 1993, the regulation was tightened again. The standard size of a new yard was reduced from 150 to 100 square meters per household, and each household was allowed to build up to 480 square meters of construction floor space. It was during this period, new construction methods were introduced. Villagers started to rebuild their new housings using concrete, brick and steel construction. The reduced plot size, after all, pushed up the construction density and building height. In 1995, the government tried to suspend approval for house building application overall. As a result, unauthorized house building occurred on an unprecedented scale. Most buildings constructed during the late 1980s and early 1990s were under 5 stories. From the late 1990s, 80% of the new buildings were between 6 and 9 stories, 5% over 10 stories, some reaches 20 floors. Each family built detached house to avoid direct contact with neighboring buildings and to maintain some individual characteristics. But to maximize the gross floor area, very narrow gaps were left between each building and thus created “kiss” buildings. In 2001, the government issued a policy to legalize the unauthorized housing inside urban villages. Villagers have to pay penalties based on the amount of gross floor areas that exceed the regulation. But most importantly, they have to register their property with the housing authority and claim their property ownership certificates. At the same time, they were required to sign the contract for using public land with the government. This process brought to an end to the collective ownership of land inside urban villages. According to the regulation, the normal legal term for urban housing land is 70 years and the government reserves the right to charge a fee at the date of renewal or withdraw land from further lease.
Dafen Village Dafen village has more than 1200 galleries and 8000 painters. Produce over 56% of oil paintings in the world. Invented the “assembly line” for painting. In 1998, after the Hongkong Economic Crisis, government starts to mass advertising the village. In 2007, Dafen museum which cost 100 million yuan was built. Dafen, however, took a hit in both 2008 economic crisis and 2019 pandemic. This raised questions to the industry itself. Furthermore, the profit margin has decreased exponentially because of the raise of labor fee. Now Dafen is seeking a total transformation by creating their own original painting style. They start to collaborate with professional and well-known painters and purchase their copyright for mass production. They also start to involve in various job types such as product design, interior design or graphic design. Each residential flat is used for live, work and exhibition. However, the rent rate is relatively high compare to other ViCs, around 2500 yuan per month.
Axonometric Drawing of a Typical Living Unit in Dafen
Section Drawing of an Apartment Building
LIVING CONDITIONS IN VICS
The ELECTRICITY is super expensive and this means one have to endure the high electric bill during summer time. Living in ViCs makes me realize LIGHT is directly related to rent. If you want more light, you need to pay more rent.
You are always aware of what your neighbors are doing because the terrible SOUND insulation between each unit. Also, there are always construction going on and they usually start very early.
HUKOU
Benefits of Having a Hukou at Shenzhen 1. Can apply to social rental housing. If you have Shenzhen Hukou but are underpaid, you have the option to apply for housing subsidy of 600 yuan per person every month. Furthermore, the rent price for social housing is have the market price.
Demographic Top 10 Provinces Where the Long-Term Residents Come From
Shenzhen Degree Ratio
2. Can purchase safeguard house. You could purchase economic housing for 5000-8000 yuan per square feet.
Middle School or Higher
3. Can purchase two apartments. Can have higher mortgage with lower interest rate when purchasing house. 4. Rental and living subsidies. People who have a full-time bachelor degree or higher education background can enjoy rental and living subsidies. People who are under 30 years old and have a bachelor degree can have a 15000 yuan subsidy. People who are under 35 years old and have a master degree can have a 25000 yuan subsidy. People who are under 40 years old and have a phd degree can have a 30000 yuan subsidy. Above are city subsidies, each district will also give out different amount of subsidies based on their policies. 5. Have more job opportunities. A lot of jobs for corporations and government requires Shenzhen Hukou as a guarantee to apply.
Junior Collge or Higher
Junior Collge or Higher
Top 20 Provinces Where the Long-Term Residents Come From
6. Can apply for unemployment insurance, which is 1700 yuan per month with subsidies. Can apply for unemployment certificate. Certificate can be used to learn driving for free and get free drivers’ license. Can participate in training coursed provided by Shenzhen’s Labor Bureau and get 2000 training subsidies. 7. Children’s education. Children can enroll in public schools with lower tuition, and don’t have to go through tedious procedure for temporary studying status. Children don’t have to go back to the original registered residential place for college entrance examination. This mean they can get in to better colleges with lower grades. 8. Children’s health insurance. Children get free vaccinations. Only need to pay 40% for clinic service and 10% if hospitalized. Children has to be 3 years or older to get health insurance if parents do not have Hukou. Furthermore, parents need to have health insurance over 1 year to apply.
2019 Shenzhen Population Distribution
9. Social Security Employers will pay more social security for people with Hukou. Also, the benefits come with the social security is relatively better. People with Hukou can have extra 3000 yuan compare to people without. 5% of medical insurance goes into personal bank account. Health insurance can cover up to 95% for people with Hukou but only to 85% for people without. 10. Retirement Insurance After retirement, people can get high retirement fee compare to other cities.
Long-Term Residents
People with Hukou
People Without Hukou
Average Age
Unlike other big cities in China (Beijing, Shanghai), Shenzhen is a modern city with short history and a very young generation average only 35 years old. Like most mega cities in the world, Shenzhen’s main economic income is from tertiary industry, mainly high technology and internet companies. This means the city also requires high maintenance from service and cleaning industries. Most of the people who are working in these industries and former farmers and did not go through adequate education. This makes their possibility to get a Hukou in cities like Shenzhen almost impossible.
GENTRIFICATION
Three approaches to ViCs
Rent
1. Demolish and rebuild: usually happen to “prime” locations with low floor to area ratio. These locations are usually located near transport hubs. This will cause large displacement and raise of rent to surrounding areas.
2. Redevelopment: usually happen to factories because of their flexible functionality. 3. Renovation: usually apply to areas with high floor to area ration that are hard to demolish. This usually happens when government, realtors or corporations and local villagers comes together and to renovate existing villagers’ houses. Government is responsible for infrastructures such as sewage, electricity or natural gas; developers are responsible for renovation; and villagers are responsible for grass-root coordination and redistribution. These houses are usually developed for qualified person (usually with a higher education). The developer will rent the house to the regional government and the regional government will redistribute these houses with discounts to qualified persons. Second landlord, the person who redevelop the origianal buildings in ViCs.
ViCs Location Relative to the Subway System
Rent Based on District
“Peasant” House Renovation
Where is their destination?