Urban Village Redevelopment in Beijing

This chapter traces the main policies and actions to erase the urban village in Beijing. Based on site visits to the representative pre- and post-demolition urban villages in Beijing’s Haidian District, the chapter examines the socio-spatial realignments as a result of state-dominated urban village redevelopment. As discussed, “territorial politics” is at play, which has fostered: (a) a new landowning class as the winners, making a windfall, on the one hand; and (b) the dispossessed low-wage migrant tenants as the losers in this process of gentrification, on the other. The study shows a sharp decline in the supply of low-rent housing in urban villages and a rapid growth of high-tech parks (on rural commons) from 2009 to the present. The conclusion compares the rights and fates of local landlords and migrant tenants in the process of urban village redevelopment.