Rural Migrants in Urban China

Taylor & Francis

After millions of migrants moved from China\u2019s countryside into its sprawling cities a unique kind of \u2018informal\u2019 urban enclave was born \u2013 \u2018villages in the city\u2019. Like the shanties and favelas before them elsewhere, there has been huge pressure to redevelop these blemishes to the urban face of China\u2019s economic vision. Unlike most developing countries, however, these are not squatter settlements but owner-occupied settlements developed semi-formally by ex-farmers turned small-developers and landlords who rent shockingly high-density rooms to rural migrants, who can outnumber their landlord villagers. A strong state, matched with well-organised landlords collectively represented through joint-stock companies, has meant that it has been relatively easy to grow the city through demolition of these soft migrant enclaves. The lives of the displaced migrants then enter a transient phase from an informal to a formal urbanity. This book looks at migrants and t.