Who was Jakarta built for?

There are many insightful articles brought up by other classmates about the new capital city in Malaysia, and here is another one discussing the colonial legacy in Jakarta, the current capital, and its relation to the new capital project. I really like the 'alun-alun' example in the first part to demonstrate how colonialism reflects on the urban layout. Alun-alun is a large open lawn area that serves as a gathering and recreation spot in every city, even in a small town. However, Jakarta does not have an alun-alun. As the author points out, "This is because much of the city's footprint was laid out by foreigners to suit their tastes and needs. It was a city built to serve the commercial interests of a foreign power, and many, though not all, of its modern urban problems, partially stem from that." Hence, the new capital, Nusantara, will represent from the ground up an Indonesian vision of the country and its future, free from colonial legacies.

I'm considering the question, "Does Indonesia really need a new capital? Can their attempts to build new cities be accomplished by transforming existing ones?"

I started to ask myself these two questions when thinking of new city projects since last time talked with Wukai Jiang about Busan's Eco-Delta Smart Village. His thoughts really inspired me, that Occam's razor applies to new city projects as well, entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity. New cities are needed only if it is impossible to transform the existing cities, and what we need is smarter/ green/ decolonial/… cities, rather than more cities. When it comes to Nusantara, is it a necessary project for Indonesia to completing get out of its colonial footprint, a redundant project demonstrating the government's incompetence and bad performance with the existing capital city, or a corruption scheme disguised as 'building the new city' as Dompak?

Paris or China: Can you tell real thing from replica?

We discussed a little bit about this phenomenon in class before and I want to elaborate more from my understanding.

In China, we have a derogatory phrase "崇洋媚外", which refer to a kind of mental state that worships western culture but despises our own culture heritage. This is extensively used when we discuss culture, social life, politics even economics… I think replicating foreign architecture is a very typical example of worshiping western culture.

The origin of this mental state could be traced back to the late 19th century and divided into 3 eras. First, China in the late Qing Dynasty became semi-feudal and semi-colonial since the late 19th century and lasted for a half-century. Chinese elites found that China lagged behind the West in every aspect, military, politics, technology, culture, education and so on. This provoked elites to advocate ''learning from the West and transforming China''. The reform progressed from pure technology to culture and gradually warped over time; for example, the "abolition of Chinese characters" was once a popular proposal among most outstanding intellectuals. This was the first time that the social phenomenon of worshiping western culture while despising Chinese culture heritage appeared in Chinese history. As a result of colonization, we can see that the culture of entire conversion to the colonizer's culture was first extensively spread among the elites.

The establishment of the People's Republic of China (1949) was the start of the second period and the denial of this mental state. During this time period, China eliminated and expelled imperialist armed forces, confiscated imperialist assets in China, and entirely got rid of its semi-colonial status, therefore eradicating the political and economic foundations for this mentality. Additionally, China was blockaded by the United States and the Soviet Union, private international relations were effectively shut off. The worship of western culture temporarily faded into oblivion.

The resurgence of this mentality began with the opening of China in 1978. Only the elites had access to western culture whereas civil society remained secluded from it in the late 19th. But in the 1980s, more and more Chinese civil could get into the Western culture from media, books, television, individual experience, and stories from others. the citizens have been actively engaged in international exchange, such as tourism, education and sports. Hence, similar to the late 18th century, the idea of learning western of all aspects and self-depreciation prevailed again and was more intense than ever before based on the huge gap of development in the late 20th century. The generation currently in power was greatly inspired by the 1980s and was naturally keen to emulate many aspects of Western culture, including architecture. It's worth emphasizing that the vast majority of senior Chinese officials were not permitted to leave China unless there were exceptional circumstances, and when these two elements combined, they inevitably chose numerous schemes emulating foreign design.

As the old saying goes, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. I think both China and Western have outstanding cultural heritage, but the social phenomenon of “worshiping western culture while despising our own cultural heritage” has a profound effect on Chinese society, as whatever is foreign is labelled as “outstanding, luxury, premium”. Another example is that developers tend to name their new real estate projects in English-translated Chinese to label them as luxury neighbourhoods. My aunt once lived in a middle-class district in peri-urban Shanghai where there are 10 neighbourhoods and all are named in English, such as the translation of “Bruce County”.

With the rapid development of Chinese economics and the improvement of Chinese average living standards, more and more people began to reflect on this deformed social phenomenon. In fact, many citizens criticize and scold the government's behaviour of blindly replicating foreign architecture. We start to realize that appreciating our own precious cultural heritage is as critical as absorbing excellent western culture. In 2020, the Chinese Ministry of Housing and Construction expressly informs large public buildings are strictly prohibited from copying or imitating. This is in corresponds to the Chinese policy of rebuilding cultural confidence.

Busan’s Eco Delta Smart Village

The article and the comments have made me consider the relationship between culture and the various perspectives on the new city project.

After reading the article, my first reaction was the same as Jeong Mi Sook's: "What a fantastic and futuristic experiment!" How come this is happening rather than just being shown in a promotional video? I want to be a part of it and live there." I also shared this article with some Chinese friends, and they all showed a technology-optimistic attitude towards this project. However, as I browsed the comments, I found that most people criticize it in the context of the environment, individuality, inorganic development, data privacy, etc. This inspires me to think about the relationship between different cultures and their reaction to new cities. How other groups are influenced by their culture, which leads to them having different views of the new city from different perspectives, is a fascinating topic that deserves more study.

Just as the first comment stated, “Different strokes for folks raised in different societies.” From my perspective, the Asian community has a tendency to worship high technology and the prosperity of industrialization, prioritizing them when considering pertinent issues. In comparison, western society emphasizes more on justice and equality, such as environmental justice, social justice, marginalized community, racial equality, and privacy. This results in enormous distinctions when individuals from diverse cultural backgrounds consider the same project and may even determine one project's outcome. Nothing is perfect; the new city is not a panacea or magic bullet that could perfectly solve every issue or satisfy everyone. Thus, when we make comments about the new city project, I believe it is critical to understand which aspects we prioritize and why others hold divergent views and think in particular ways.

Our Urban Future May Be a City in a Box

Check out this 15-minute video, I really like the beginning of this clip, the satellite motions illustrate how quickly the new cities are being built and how fascinating they are. (Isn’t the narrator’s voice familiar

Previous discussions about Songdo primarily focus on the privacy issue and district design, this video brings up very detailed design stories behind the scenes and illustrates another intriguing concept: “The city in a box”.

The majority partner of Songdo is Gale International, a privately owned real estate development based in New York. Gale draws on the precedent culled from other successful places, such as Boulevards of Paris, Grand Canal of Venice, Central Park of New York City, Row house of Boston Bay. Packing all the successful designs, they wish to create a replicable model city and duplicate the Songdo Model to the rest of the world. The current new project they are working on is Meixi Lake in Changsha, China. "We visited Changsha several times." The representative of Gale International stated that the company planned to select a similar site in China. They plan to build Meixi Lake into an international integrated functional area, including international exhibition center, office area, innovation center and inhabitant area.

This concept reminds me of what we learnt about the Korean LH corporation. It exports ‘the Korean new town model’ to the world, especially in Africa. This model is very standardized as well, constructing a new city and context-appropriate industry in 5 years. What do you think of these standardized models?

An Update on China's Largest Ghost City

I am quite interested in Ghost cities in China, so after class I look through some intriguing articles and here is the one. Unlike most of the Op-Eds criticizing low occupancy and real estate bubble in Kangbashi, the author thinks Ghost city is a misreading of Kangbashi. “The presence of unoccupied homes is less of a calamity and more the result of complex social, political, and economic forces that’s more or less a normal part of China’s particular method of new city building and vitalization. And the emptiness of Kangbashi itself is a deception. In point, you can’t just show up in a developing Chinese city, take some pictures of empty buildings, and jump to the conclusion that they are harbingers of an impending economic doomsday.”

Beyond that, he further points out the design creates a car city, and the quality of urban life may be jeopardized by a lack of consideration of street life. The spacious boulevard and few walking area led to few places for inhabitants to hang out, which make Kangbashi still looks like a ghost city, with 100,000 people here.

A lot of urban design has been criticized for having too many lanes and neglecting street life, such as Songdo and Kangbashi. Many articles argue that the expanding road network won’t solve traffic congestion, only leading to more drivers and more cars on the street. However, this is a trending, even standardized street design in Chinese new city. Large population and traffic congestion may both be factors that taken into account. What do you think of this kind of street design?

Dompak: Tale of Corruption

I looked up some articles and videos about Dompak after the guest lecture, and here is the one written by Sarah, discussing unprecedented corruption. At the deadline for completion, only a third of the city infrastructure had been completed, while 75% budget had been spent. The loss of the initial investment monies, the stalled construction, and the missing fines all point to an Indonesian political climate rife with corruption.

I brought up the corruption issue in Dompak to reflect on the new planned capital city, Nusantara in Indonesia. I saw many classmates post very insightful articles on this new city project, focusing on ecology, the relocation of the capital, and the lessons to be learned from new capital projects in other countries. From my perspective, corruption would still be an important issue to deal with in the new capital project. As Sarah mentioned, “In a climate of rampant corruption, government officials do not appear to fear any consequences of their actions… new cities such as Dompak are proving to be an unprecedented opportunity for corrupt officials to personally enrich themselves.” Over one decade, the Corruption Perceptions Index of Indonesia has not changed a lot, rising from 32 to 38.

I am not very familiar with the government structure of Indonesia, so I wonder whether the level of the project would have an impact on corruption. In other words, Dompak is designated provincial capital while Nusantara will be a national capital. Corruption is certain to exist in Nusantara, but will government officials be less corrupt out of fear of failing to execute the city's most significant new city project? I would love to hear your opinion on this.

Xiong'an New Area: 5 Years On

While the delineation of the Xiong'an New Area is significant for the party, the period is not optimal for Xiong'an. CCP has extremely high expectations for Xiong’an, but I do not feel that new technologies and models proposed by numerous institutions will determine Xiong'an future development.

I think that what will truly facilitate the development of Xiong’an is the fact that the central government has granted Xiong'an the right to explore through institutional mechanisms and a more expansive exploration space than ever before. However, even with fault tolerance and exploration, there will be policy instability for a long period of time.

Construction of a new area in China tends to be extremely rapid. Once the government has decided to designate a piece of land, it frequently completes dozens of square kilometers of construction within two years. Xiong'an is unlike any other new district built in China in the preceding decades in this regard. The government attempts to investigate the land use system, the property rights system, the relationship between government and business, the relationship between government and enterprises, and the reorganization and reconstruction of the complex relationship between short-term economic benefits and long-term public services, as well as long-term population quality improvement, at each stage of the construction and development process.

'New Town', Same Old Mistakes

Thank you for posting this article! The lack of accountability isn’t a new topic when discussing new city projects. The gross delay of the Purbachal project reminds me of Dompak. 75% budget had been spent, whereas only a third of the city infrastructure had been completed at the deadline for completion of Dompak. When new cities became an unprecedented opportunity for corrupt officials to personally enrich themselves, it is not surprising to face the loss of the initial investment monies, the stalled construction, and the missing fines.

This inspires me to think about the ‘PowerPoint City’ Sarah mentioned in the recap lecture. Several possible reasons include: Government tends to make unrealistic magnificent plans, so it’s nearly impossible to complete; Unexpected excess funding shortage further leads to incompletion while in the process; The government transparency index is very low, which tightly related to lack of accountability and corruption. I browse google scholar and haven’t found anything relevant article systematically examining the main reasons behind the unfinished city projects. Probably a good term paper topic for upcoming students

Utrecht's Exemplar City Design That Prioritises People Over Cars

This article discusses a new neighborhood called “Merwede”, which is located in Utrecht, Dutch. In 2020, Utrecht unveil its latest masterplan for a completely car-free city.

Compared to other cities that claim to be car-free (e.g., Jeddah and the Line), this project seems more attainable and reasonable to me. There is a deep tradition in Dutch of biking instead of driving. The total population of the Netherlands is 1.7 million with overall 2.2 million bicycles and the bicycle pathway spans more than 35,000 km across the entire country. Hence, Dutch is known for the kingdom of cyclists. This illustrious reputation is best reflected in Utrecht, which is home to the world’s largest bike parking lot.

In GEOG217, we learnt that urban imagination has two distinct aspects: Reimage urban life and powers to reshape cities. The former emphasizes relationship between cities and inhabitants, while the latter addresses the ideology, social status of the city planners. Regarding the relationship between city and its inhabitants, I believe that the residents are the owners of the city and should be the primary factor when planners make the masterplans. However, many city plans have reversed the relationship between the two, trying to display the developing progress of the country through grand narratives while ignoring inhabitants’ custom and tradition. This, I believe, is what Merwede shines at. The city is not visual spectacles with towering skyscrapers or giant, representative buildings. It is the place where inhabitants live. Merwede does an excellent job of respecting local culture while integrating the new concept city planning based on their custom.

King Mohammed VI Green City

In September 2010, Morocco King Mohammed VI unveiled a new city project “King Mohammed VI Green City” (VVM6). This new city is adjacent to Benguerir, an existing city of 80,000 working class with high unemployment. According to the master plan, VVM6 is a new city whose identity revolves around knowledge, research, and sustainable development; an ambitious urban project built with the Mohamed 6 Polytechnic University at its core and as a driving power for its development.

VVM6 is a spatial expansion of the Benguerir. This prompts me to think about the tight relationship between the existing city and its adjacent new city. It seems like planners want to address the current economic problem in Benguerir by constructing an adjacent new city. However, the main economic industries are so distinguished from each other that I wonder how these two cities will make full leverage of spatial proximity to boost economic development. VVM6’s economy will be centred on universities and R & D, which will attract educated elites; while Benguerir is known for the phosphate rock industry, which is crowded with working class. Apart from that, how will VVM6 embrace Benguerir's current inhabitants?

The previous student Chloe McGuire also shared an article about this city. They discussed the changes in the city model in the post-pandemic period, and how might VVM6 planners modify their plan in response to the publicization of private space. You can also take a look at this article if you find it’s an interesting topic. The Big Picture: Green City, Benguerir

There are not many videos or articles about this city, even though the project was announced 10 years ago. Please feel free to attach the latest updates if you found some!

China's Largest Ghost City Booms Again Thanks to Education Fever

The author tries to explore the main driving force behind the renewed Kangbashi, arguing that school district effects on housing prices predominate. However, I want to point out that there are some arguments that is not that accurate in my point of view.

The article states “Tight regulations surrounding school districts require parents who want to send children to a particularly coveted school to own a home within the district.” This concept is correct when we talk about Chinese elementary school, but not high school or middle school.

Chinese students have a provincial-level high school entrance examination at the end of their grade- 9, the results of this one-time examination determine which high school you can enter. Similarly, the ranking and scores of the national university entrance examination are the only factors that determine which university one can enter. Top public high schools(not private schools) like Ordos NO.1 high school select students only based on scores, just like McGill. Even if one parents own a home near Ordos No.1 high school, one cannot have the chance to enter without excellent scores in that exam. In terms of middle school, tier 1 middle schools will organize their own exams for grade-6 students and give offers to satisfied students, students can choose the school if they pass two or more. Take me as an example, I took 2 different entrance exams at 12, I failed the best one (270 out of 8000 students) and passed the second. If I didn’t take these exams, I could go to a middle school near my home, but it has much lower educational quality. Overall, scores determine whether one could enter top middle school, high school, and universities, rather than purchasing a new house near a relevant school.

In addition, Ordos NO.1 high school provides 5 residential apartments which could contain 4000 students in total. Residential apartments are quite general among top high schools in China since many top students may come from other cities in the same province. I found the planned enrollment number of the school is 1152 in 2020, which is announced by the Ordos government. This implies that there are enough dormitories to accommodate all the students. Fun fact, public high school residential fee is super cheap in China, ranging from 500 -1000 CNY ( 100-200 CAD) per term.

My opinion is that parents purchase new apartments near school simply because they want to live with their children, talk to them and support them in this special period (since we are not allowed to use phones in high school, which means parents can only talk to their child on 1-2 days a week). Everyone is under high pressure in High school. We had a midterm, final, monthly even weekly test on 6 disciplines, the university entrance exam scores determine our university, no regular grades, no extracurricular, only one-time ranking among 400,000 grade-12 students in the same province. (You have to get the first 50 out of 400k if you want to enter Peking or Tsinghua University). Think about how stressed students are. Naturally, parents want to take good care of their children, comforting them when they are frustrated, encouraging them when they make progress, making sure their children are physically and mentally healthy, talking to them from time to time. As a person who experienced this period, I know how much my parents were worried about me and how much they care about my mind. I think this is one reason that cannot be ignored.

The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, has announced the intention to create the first Bitcoin City in the world in the east of the Central American country, in Conchagua. The creation was announced in a massive event in November 2021, the construction is to start in 2022.

The ambitious circular development, designed by Fernando Romero Enterprise - Free, includes areas for cryptocurrency-related technology companies, residential areas, an airport, and a seaport. This smart city will generate its own power from a nearby volcano. El Salvador, which legalized bitcoin this year, began mining bitcoin last October through volcanic activity. To achieve efficiency and sustainability, the city features a large central square with a museum dedicated to the history of money, intelligent buildings equipped with cutting-edge technology, and a large multipurpose stadium that can accommodate a variety of events.

This is not the world first cryptocurrency city in the world. Back in 2018 and 2020, Rapper Akon successively claims 2 new cities in Africa would create by him, One in Senegal and one in Uganda. Cities will function entirely through Akon’s own cryptocurrency, Akoin. However, I cannot find any on-the-ground construction updates about this cryptocurrency city. The 1st phase of Akon City initially was expected to be complete by December 2023, due to the amount of infrastructure required, the city would not be complete until 2036. Hence I am very skeptical about the bitcoin city in EI Salvador, just like the plan announced by Rapper, it seems like a futuristic wish rather than an executable plan.

Xiongan: A New City for the Future

China announced the establishment of the Xiongan New Area on April 1, 2017, aiming to relieve Beijing of functions non-essential to its role as the national capital and to advance the coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. This is a continuous trending topic in China since the announcement. Xiongan is designed to become a livable, green and business-friendly area and also a digital zone for innovation. It is built up in a smart city framework with an urban computing center, block data platform, the Internet of Things integrated open platform, video network platform and construction information modelling (CIM) platform.

The article offers a brand new perspective of interpreting Xiong'an that I had never thought of: "Building a model city has a long tradition among China’s reform-era leaders." Shenzhen is forever connected with the name Deng Xiaoping(China approved to establish Shenzhen special economic zone in 1980); Jiang Zemin's legacy is inextricably linked to Shanghai Pudong District(from 1990); The fourth president Hu did not mark any city; Now, Xi is attempting to link his name to Xiongan.

Shenzhen and Shanghai indeed are economic miracles and blueprints in Chinese history. I am looking forward to seeing how Xiong'an will be written in Chinese history in the future —— another megacity in Chinese inland or a huge failure?

China Has Officially Started Construction on the World's First "Forest City"

I look up the Liuzhou government website as well as the Guangxi government website, but I do not find any announcement about the plan or launch of this “vertical forest" project. I found out that a reporter from the South China Morning Post contacted the Liuzhou City Planning Bureau by phone in 2017, and the Liuzhou planning department said they have never published the relevant information. It looks like even though the Liuzhou government might intend to call for drafts on the new city planning, the vertical forest plan is not adopted.

The idea of forest city construction is to mitigate climate change, relieve the excessive steel and concrete exterior of the city, and add green space to the city. But in fact, Liuzhou is a livable, environment-friendly medium-sized city in China. Surrounded by mountains on three sides and flat terrain, with the Liuzhou River running through it, Liuzhou has 65% forest coverage and extremely high air quality.

The concept of "forest city" is not a panacea that can be applied to any city, especially to an area where the natural ecological environment itself is an advantage. In addition, Liuzhou is not a strong economic city, the price local citizens can afford cannot support these forest buildings. From my perspective, “vertical forest” is likely to become another ghost city if this plan once launch.

NEOM Tech Digital Co. Unveils

The quote "The future will be defined not by megacities, but by cognitive meta cities” in the article piques my interest in “mega cities”. I browse the relevant materials and find 2 typical statements: The first statement is that the term meta city is used to describe the linking of megacities via high-speed transport and critical infrastructure. This statement implies that meta cities consist of several megacities and have a larger scale. If so, it seems contrary to the quote “It is a vision focused on experiences rather than scale”.

The second statement emphasizes the virtual meta-infrastructure in the city that constitutes urban configurations, new digital sensing, communication, and social networking technologies. I also look up the term “cognitive city”, which expands the concept of the smart city with the aspect of cognition or refers to a virtual environment where goal-driven communities gather to share knowledge. I think this concept is quite similar to statement 2 of megacity (Perhaps because I do not know much about cutting-edge technology so I do not know much about this technical jargon). From my perspective, the CEO seems to be just talking about building smart cities with some seemingly profound technological jargon.

How to Build a New City from Scratch

The article sharply points out the shortcomings of many new cities in a humorous and witty tone, as well as pointing out many meaningful explorations of new cities. I came up with an idea about the smart city “the Line” in Saudi Arabia when I read the second part addressing the water problem.

One of the most striking aspects of THE LINE's design is the single central rail line up to 170km across the country, which is also very confusing. Given that the center priority when considering building THE LINE is to resolve the water shortage, perhaps this is where THE LINE, a straight line, originated. The construction of a desalination plant on the Red Sea to supply the city with constant water is a prerequisite for the construction of NEOM. And the pipe that supplies the city should be a straight line. The most efficient method of supplying the city with water via this pipe is for the city to grow in a straight line parallel to the pipe's direction. Thus, the infrastructure of water transmission may be one of the logic behind this straight line city, and the shape of the straight line may symbolize the city's "living by water" to some extent. I really love this article!! And the steps mentioned have prompted me further thought about many new cities.

Russia's New Arctic Project Will Be Biggest in Global Oil

Anna notes, unlike the vast majority of cities, these new cities are focused on industrial development rather than urbanization, which means that the wealth of resources available at the site will support employment and economic development in the new cities for quite some time compared to other new cities.

It is worth noting that these new cities are in Siberia, not in the triangle that culminates in the cities of St. Petersburg, Novorossiysk and Irkutsk, where most of the Russian population is concentrated. The trend of population movement shows that this triangle is continuously absorbing the Russian population due to climatic and historical reasons, and the distribution of the Russian population is becoming more and more uneven.

Siberia occupies about 3/4 of Russia's territory but is home to less than a quarter of the population, so I think the priority of building these new cities is to consider how to attract people to move here and settle down. Energy development is a huge advantage in establishing new cities, but the cold and uninhabitable climate is also an important issue to consider. Climate change makes artic silk roads possible, but it does not mean that these new cities will immediately become places suitable for living.

Five New Cities in Shanghai

These five new cities (in China we called districts since they are still in Shanghai municipal district) have been planned and built far before 2021. In 2001, Shanghai Government first brought out the idea of “One city and nine towns” during the “Tenth Five-year Plan”, in an effort to construct a system of a mega international economic center. Songjiang is one of the towns. At the beginning of the construction in 2011, the planning projected a population of 600,000 by 2020. In the newly revised plan, the resident population of the new city is expected to reach 1.1 million by 2020. However, by the end of 2010, the population of Songjiang had reached about 1.28 million. And Songjiang has a population of 1.91 million by the end of 2021.

The syphoning effect of a large city like Shanghai has resulted in a rapid increase in the population density in and around Shanghai. As a result, traffic congestion and housing shortages worsen. Hence, ‘accelerating the construction of five cities’ mentioned in the article is a modification based on the finished initial plan, which tries to mitigate these problems.

I interviewed one of my friends who has been living in Songjiang since his childhood. He says that Songjiang was really small when he was young, with only 3 horizontal streets and 3 vertical streets. But everything changed since 2014, with well-established infrastructure, more and more people crowd in. To alleviate rising population and traffic congestion, Songjiang is building Shanghai's first networked tram system, with 75 kilometres completed by 2020. He is astounded by the rapid pace of development and proud of the Shanghai government's foresight.

In my perspective, Shanghai's urban planning framework serves as a blueprint for other Chinese cities. Instead of focusing exclusively on the next few years, urban planners should consider the trajectory of urban development for the next 20 or 30 years and plan ahead to avoid urban problems.

Land Grab or River Revival inside 7 Billion Ravi City Project

I think this article addresses some critical issues when new cities are built on top of existing cities where thousands of people currently live rather than on empty land: What will become of the low-income residents who have lived in this area for a long time? How will the government resettle these residents? Does the government treat them properly? Will they continue to be marginalized under the reconstruction of the city? Although the main from RUDA point out that there won’t be any forced acquisition, there must exist some gaps between the overall guidance of the program and concrete implementation. For example, The government designated portions of the Warraich family's land as barren, despite the fact that they are viable for farming, and offered him less than the land is worth.

This reminds me of the large number of demolition and relocation programs that have occurred in the downtown segments of some Chinese large cities, and we call it “urban village”. Urban villages are a distinct phenomenon that developed as a result of China's urbanization initiatives. They are frequently inhabited by the poor and itinerant, and as such are associated with squalor, overpopulation, and social problems, thus why governments want to start the relocation program. Depending on the financial expenses of different cities, urban villagers may have different levels of compensation. Some could become rich overnight after their family home are dismantled to give way to new housing estates because the developers had to compensate them with a huge sum of money. However, some individuals will confront an unjust compensation arrangement that forces them to live a worse life.