MCLC: ghettoization of new towns

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: ghettoization of new towns
***********************************************************

Source: NYT (11/9/13):
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/world/asia/new-china-cities-shoddy-homes-
broken-hope.html

LEAVING THE LAND
New China Cities: Shoddy Homes, Broken Hope
By IAN JOHNSON

HUAMING, China — Three years ago, the Shanghai World Expo featured this
newly built town as a model for how China would move from being a land of
farms to a land of cities. In a dazzling pavilion visited by more than a
million people, visitors learned how farmers were being given a new life
through a fair-and-square deal that did not cost them anything.

Today, Huaming may be an example of another transformation: the
ghettoization of China’s new towns.

Signs of social dysfunction abound. Young people, who while away their
days in Internet cafes or pool halls, say that only a small fraction of
them have jobs. The elderly are forced to take menial work to make ends
meet. Neighborhood and family structures have been damaged.

Most worrying are the suicides, which local residents say have become an
all-too-familiar sign of despair.

As China pushes ahead with government-led urbanization, a program expected
to be endorsed at a Communist Party Central Committee meeting that began
Saturday, many worry that the scores of new housing developments here may
face the same plight as postwar housing projects in Western countries.
Meant to solve one problem, they may be creating a new set of troubles
that could plague Chinese cities for generations.

“We’re talking hundreds of millions of people who are moving into these
places, but the standard of living for these relocatees has actually
dropped,” said Lynette Ong, a University of Toronto political scientist
who has studied the resettlement areas. “On top of that is the quality of
the buildings — there was a lot of corruption, and they skimped on
materials.”

Huaming is far from being a dangerous slum. It has no gangs, drug use or
street violence. Nearly half the town is given over to green space. Trees
line the streets that lead to elementary, middle and high schools.

But the new homes have cracked walls, leaking windows and elevators with
rusted out floors. For farmers who were asked to surrender their ancestral
lands for an apartment, the deterioration adds to a sense of having been
cheated.

“That was their land,” said Wei Ying, a 35-year-old unemployed woman whose
parents live in a poorly built unit. “You have to understand how they feel
in their heart.”

The sense of despair and alienation surfaces in the suicides, a late-night
leap from a balcony, drinking of pesticide or lying down on railroad
tracks.

“I have anxiety attacks because we have no income, no job, nothing,” said
Feng Aiju, 40, a former farmer who moved to Huaming in 2008 against her
will. She said she had spent a small fortune by local standards, $1,500,
on antidepressants. “We never had a chance to speak; we were never asked
anything. I want to go home.”

The situation in these new towns contrasts with the makeshift housing
where other migrants live. Many of those are created by farmers who chose
to leave their land for jobs in the city. Although cramped and messy, they
are full of vitality and upward mobility, said Biao Xiang, a social
anthropologist at Oxford University who has studied migrant communities.

“These migrant neighborhoods in big cities are often called slums, but
it’s the new resettlement communities that will be harder to revive,
partly because they are not related to any productive economic activity,”
Professor Xiang said. “And the population tend to be homogeneous,
disadvantaged communities.”

Addressing ‘Disorder’

The idea behind Huaming was radically different. In 2005, Huaming Township
was chosen to be a demonstration for successful, planned urbanization. A
township is an administrative unit in China above a village but below a
county, and Huaming had 41,000 people living in 12 small villages dotted
across 60 square miles, most of which was farmland.

For northern China it was unusually fertile because water was plentiful.
On the outskirts of one of China’s largest cities, the port of Tianjin, it
was well known for its local handicrafts, such as decorative
paper-cutting, and, especially, its vegetables that were easily sold in
the big city.

City planners, however, saw it as a major problem.

“The naturally formed villages had undergone disorderly developments
resulting in low building density, in disarrayed industrial space and
layout,” according to a publication explaining the need for change.
(Officials refused requests for interviews, but have published copiously
on the project, allowing insights into their thinking.) The villages had
no sewage treatment, and were “dirty, messy and substandard.”

The idea was to consolidate the villages into one new town called Huaming
that would take up less than one square mile, versus the three square
miles that the dozen villages had occupied. A portion of the remaining 59
square miles could be sold to developers to pay for construction costs,
meaning the new buildings would cost farmers and the government nothing.

The rest of the land would stay agricultural, but worked by a few
remaining farmers using modern methods. This would achieve another aim:
not reducing the amount of arable land — a crucial goal for a country with
a huge population and historic worries about being able to feed itself.

Construction started in March 2006, and was finished just 16 months later.
The town is made up of six- to nine-story buildings divided into gated
compounds of a dozen or so buildings each. Commercial space is officially
limited to two streets, making the rest of town a quiet residential area
centered on the new public schools. An attractive park and lake are given
over at night to dancing and socializing.

The biggest selling point in official literature is how space was to be
allocated. Farmers would able to trade the living space in their farmhouse
for the same-size apartment in the new town. Even the yard around the
farmhouse figured into the equation.

What happened was more complicated. Most families got 322 square feet per
member. That is 22 square feet more than the average per capita living
space in the city of Tianjin, but most of the new units were just 800
square feet, so a typical family of three would not get their full
allotment. In theory, they could use the remaining allotment and spend
their own money to purchase another unit, but most ended up with less
floor space than they had on the farm.

Some were still happy to take up the offer. In interviews, those most
happy about the new plan already had nonfarming jobs and saw this as a way
to get a modern apartment.

“It’s survival of the fittest,” said Yang Huashuai, a 25-year-old
electrician and gypsy-cab driver who said his family got three apartments.
“If you don’t work hard, you don’t deserve to make it.”

But many others did not want to leave their land. By 2008, the
government’s offer had met limited success, with only half the population
choosing to move. Already, though, government propaganda was extolling
Huaming as a success, and officials planned to feature it at the world’s
fair in two years’ time.

“They said if we didn’t move, it would affect the World Expo,” said Jia
Qiufu, 69, a former resident of Guanzhuang Village. “They said it had to
happen by 2009 because the Expo was the next year.”

The local government used intense pressure to force farmers out of their
villages. It tore up roads and cut electricity and water. Even so,
thousands stayed on. As a final measure, the schoolhouses — one in each
village — were demolished. With no utilities and no way to educate their
children, most farmers capitulated and moved to town.

Losing the Jobs Competition

Besides dissatisfaction over the amount of space they would receive,
farmers were most concerned about jobs, a common worry in other
resettlement projects. In the official literature, Huaming had that taken
care of. Compared with relocation projects in remote rural areas, such as
southern Shaanxi Province, Huaming is next to a major transportation
corridor, the Beijing-Tianjin Expressway. It is also adjacent to Tianjin’s
massive airport logistics center, which is expanding and adding thousands
of jobs.

Many farmers said, however, that they were not qualified for these jobs.

“We know how to farm, but not how to work in an office,” said Wei Dushen,
a former resident of Guanzhuang Village now living in town. “Those are for
educated people.”

Almost uniformly, Huaming residents say the only jobs open to them are in
dead-end menial positions, such as street sweepers or low-level security
guards. These jobs pay the equivalent of $150 a month.

Even so, competition for them is fierce. Poor migrants from other parts of
China are willing to work for even less, often because they have lower
living costs. Almost all the gardening in public spaces in Huaming, for
example, is done by workers from the inland province of Henan who come for
a short time and leave. Workers pruning bushes in the town’s beautifully
manicured park, for example, said they were paid $100 a month and were
happy for it.

“Compared to Henan it’s good work,” said Zhuang Wei, 58, who said he lived
in a room with five other men and ate simple canteen food offered by the
company that had brought him to Huaming. “I’ll stick around here for a few
months and then head back.”

Other migrants, mostly from Shandong Province, dominate Huaming’s taxi
industry because they have teams of experienced mechanics, drivers and
dispatchers.

“You can’t really compete with them,” said one local driver, Wei Zhen.
“They’re professionals who have been doing this for years.”

Retraining was supposed to have allowed Huaming villagers a chance to get
skills to compete. According to official literature, $1,500 was allotted
for each resident. However, it was impossible to find any who had received
retraining or had heard of anyone who had.

For young people, the problems are especially acute.

Even when they can get the well-paying menial jobs of $150 a month,
residents overwhelmingly said this barely allowed them to make ends meet.
Day care costs $100 per month per child, which would take a third of an
average couple’s salary. Unlike in the villages, many families do not live
near one another, making it hard to leave children with their grandparents.

Costs are also high. Inflation has nearly doubled the price of rice,
something the residents find especially galling because in the past they
grew it themselves.

Many young people seem to have given up trying to find work. Internet
cafes are packed with them playing games. Although the cafes are supposed
to be limited to the commercial streets, they are found in converted
apartments in many housing blocks.

In one, 28-year-old Zhang Wei said he had invested $4,300 to renovate an
apartment and install computers. The unit’s former living room was packed
with young people hunched over screens, many of them playing games like
World of Warcraft for money.

“They’re all unemployed local people, but without qualifications, what can
they do?” Mr. Zhang said.

In a nearby unit, Liu Baohua, an unemployed 62-year-old farmer, said the
buildings were almost uninhabitable during the winter. “These buildings
look modern outside, but they’re not,” Mr. Liu said. “It’s the worst
quality.”

Mr. Liu’s apartment leaks water from the ceiling, which he said
maintenance crews told him they could not fix.

Windows were double-glazed but the quality was bad and seals broken,
causing them to mist up with condensation.

Radiators, he said, had almost no hot water. He also showed work bills
from maintenance visits in January confirming that his north-facing
bedroom was 55 degrees.

“We need to buy space heaters to survive here,” Mr. Liu said. His wife
works as a street sweeper and the couple get the equivalent of welfare for
an additional $60 a month.

For many, the disappointment leads to suicides. Recently, residents said,
a 19-year-old man ill with cancer flung himself off the family’s
third-floor balcony at 5:30 a.m. and landed on the parking lot next to two
vans serving breakfast. His father dead and his mother living on welfare,
the family was too poor to afford further cancer treatment. The story
could not be verified with the authorities but was repeated independently
by residents.

The Good Earth

More common are stories of old people who cannot get used to the new lives
and quickly die of illnesses. One term that residents repeatedly use is
“biesi” — “stifled to death” in the new towers.

“I’m tired, I’m so tired,” said an elderly woman who would give only her
surname, Wei. In the past, Chinese farmers wanted sons because they lived
at home, whereas daughters married into other families. Now, this is
reversed because of the burden of having to help a son find a home or job.

Mrs. Wei said her son had bought a car with the family savings but was
losing money driving it. The family’s savings now almost exhausted, she
said she did not know what to do.

“It’s tough having a son,” she said, quietly weeping. “I wish I had a
daughter.”

Some residents wonder why they went through these travails when so little
development is visible. Outside the town, most of the former township lies
empty. Some hotels and office blocks have been built next to the airport
logistics center. But mostly, one is confronted by mile after mile of
empty lots — once farmland, now lying fallow, sometimes blocked from view
by endless sheet-metal fences painted with propaganda about prosperity and
development.

“Look at the empty fields,” said Wei Naiju, formerly of Guanzhuang
Village. “That’s good earth; you could really plant something on it.”

Driving through the demolished villages with former residents is
especially poignant. Some of the streets are still serviceable but mostly
one is surrounded by a gutted, bombed-out landscape of foundations
overgrown with scrub and small trees.

Given all the fallow land, claims that agricultural production would not
suffer do not seem possible. Official propaganda material shows
greenhouses that produce vegetables. Many greenhouses have indeed been
built, but dozens were empty during a visit in June. Doors swung wildly in
the wind and the clear plastic used to let the sun in was torn and
flapping. Two greenhouses seemed to be functioning; local residents said
they were used to make gifts of produce to visiting leaders as
Potemkin-like proof of the still-vibrant agricultural sector.

Back in town, the life that once existed in the township has been
memorialized in a museum. It is rarely open to the public, but its front
door was ajar one day this past summer. Filled with full-scale dioramas of
village homes and human figures, it was a re-creation of the old village
life, accurate down to the dried corn hanging from the eaves. An
introductory plaque explained: “Time goes by, and things change.”

Sue-Lin Wong contributed reporting.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: November 10, 2013

An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to the Oxford
University professor Biao Xiang on second reference. He is Mr. Xiang, not
Mr. Biao.