Gentrification and neglect in Shanghai

Whilst In China’s economic capital, I came across two sites of settlement relocation, one in兰言里, Jiaxing road district and one in Dananmen.

A lady we interviewed with a Chinese speaking friend, 68 of age is being offered up to 2 years of temporary housing whilst her settlement in central Shanghai is demolished to give place for a new development . After that she will be moved to a new apartment 2 hours of travel from the city and she is uncertain whether this will be close to any members of the old community she is currently part of. The agency persuading the residents to move out, adjacent to the settlement, displays a large poster ‘88% of residents already agreed to move out’.

Our interviewee’s tenants are workers from rural areas, commonly looked down upon in public places. These guys with weather-beaten faces, in scruffy padded jackets and Russian hats are the main force of China’s ultra-capitalist economic boom.

Our interviewees and her settlement

One of central Shanghai’s largest construction sites for a ‘financial city’, and a nearby settlement being relocated. Also the invisible heroes of Chinese growth: migrant workers building the financial city