Part 1: The urbanization of Shenzhen references three key moments in China's history. Such moments are spatially expressed in concentric development around traditional villages. Next: Neoliberalizing the bamboo curtain
Part 4: As of 2013, with a population of 140,000 residents Baishizhou was the largest of Shenzhen's urban villages. The sheer size and density of the village highlights the contradictions between formal and informal urbanization of the city.
Part 3: Shenzhen township and village enterprises (TVEs) in the outer districts were quick to take advantage of neoliberal reforms, and by 1990 had become de facto urban planners, developers and industrialists of the city. Next: Neighbourhoods for the working poor
Part 2: Both Cold War geo-politics and the rush to develop the neoliberal city informed the development of a particular form of urban inequality within Shenzhen's informal villages. Next: Informal urbanization in the outer districts
In this 4-part series, Mary Ann O'Donnell explores the social antagonisms that have emerged through Shenzhen's informal urbanization of villages. Each article features a corresponding photo-walk. Next: Lessons from Shenzhen: the Nantou peninsula
Shenzhen, one of our greatest contemporary urban experiments, faces huge challenges in integrating the non-urban populations on which the city was built, into the city-proper.
