The Shenzhen Experiment: The Story of China’s Instant City

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From serving as an important salt-production and administrative capital during the Han Dynasty to that of a major port on the South China Sea’s ancient maritime Silk Road, the area’s history was no less remarkable before it became Shenzhen. In stark contrast to conventional, flattened accounts of this vast Chinese city, Juan Du has given us an architect’s magical encounter with a place that we cannot quite see with our eyes, but can experience in fragments. I love this account of Shenzhen.”—Saskia Sassen, author of Expulsions: Brutality and Complexity in the Global Economy An award-winning Hong Kong–based architect with decades of experience designing buildings and planning cities in the People’s Republic of China takes us to the Pearl River delta and into the heart of China’s iconic Special Economic Zone, Shenzhen. PF: You challenge the idea of Shenzhen as a ‘blank canvas’ where nothing much existed before. What was Shenzhen, before it was Shenzhen?

Is Shenzhen now China’s most important city? In August of 2019, the country’s State Council released a statement announcing that Shenzhen was to be developed into a “pilot demonstration area of socialism with Chinese characteristics”, with the aim of it becoming a “global benchmark city”. The timing of the announcement was unsurprising; the government attention to be lavished on Shenzhen is in direct response to the current situation in Hong Kong. An editorial in the Global Times put it: Whether viewed as cliché or cherished as an origin story, the Shenzhen myth embodies China’s global rise at the turn of the twenty-first century. The myth has become more powerful than any facts about the city. There isn't really an argumentative point to the book, besides describing this miracle of transformation. The author kind of highlights the role of individual actors, including of the mayor Liang Xiang and his role in encouraging long term investments in education, schools, and hospitals. She also sort of takes a stance on the urban villages within Shenzhen such as Baishizhou, talking about how important they, and the illegal peasant housing built within them, were to the development and growth of the city as a whole, but there really aren't any strong claims made. Which makes sense because the title is just "The story of China's instant city". The region’s long history cannot be discounted in any narrative of post-1979 Shenzhen, and any understanding of industrialization in the countryside must begin with an understanding of the countryside before industrialization.

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At fifty seven, Jiang was unusually old for an incomer to the city; this was a place where the average age was under 25. He found a job, however, and settled in to his new life. A budding lyricist, in December of the same year he was moved to write a song about the city which had become its home. It was called “The Story of Spring”: PF: Many foreign companies with investments and factories in Shenzhen say it is the newness of the city – not just the buildings and infrastructure, but also that nobody has traditional ties to the city – that makes it a good place to do business. You butt up against far fewer social and cultural problems than you might elsewhere. Do you think this is true, even now after four decades of Shenzhen? JD: There have been hundreds of SEZ’s and new areas established in China since the 1980s, but not even one comes close to Shenzhen. This has not deterred more ongoing efforts of economic or industrial zone developments in China. Viewing Shenzhen’s role as an industrial or economic zone only would be a mistake for anyone wishing to understand or emulate its development. Juan Du. The Shenzhen Experiment: The Story of China’s Instant City (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2020).

As a result of Shenzhen's extraordinary economic success, the city was viewed as a land of opportunity. There was mass rural migration to the SEZ, and Shenzhen experienced immense population growth. By 2000, 20 million people lived in the Shenzhen SEZ. Despite Urban Villages having a negative stereotype (through 2016) because they didn't fit into the image of a well-planned city, the 300 urban villages - aka, peasant houses and villages in the city (6-7 floor "towers" & "nail houses") supplied half of the residential floor area, and provided affordable housing to its growing population. Additionally, within these communities, township and village enterprises (TVE) sprouted and became the industrial engine of Shenzhen's economy during the SEZ's first decade. Yung Ho Chang, Shaoxiong Cheng, & Juan Du (2007). ‘Urban Tools,’&‘Micro-Urbanism.’ In Hanru Hou et al. (Eds.), Beyond: An Extraordinary Space of Experimentation for Modernization, The Second Guangzhou Triennial (Exhibition Catalogue) (pp. 86-88). Guangzhou: Ling-Nan Arts Publishing House. Wasserstrom praised how the work is "a major contribution to understanding a fascinating city" though he argued she should not have de-emphasized the massacre, should have cited Shenzheners by Xue Yiwei, and should have examined how the "“fishing village" myth" became popularized. [4] In August of 2019, the country’s State Council released a statement announcing that Shenzhen was to be developed into a “pilot demonstration area of socialism with Chinese characteristics”, with the aim of it becoming a “global benchmark city”. The timing of the announcement was unsurprising — the government attention lavished on Shenzhen is in direct response to the civil unrest in Hong Kong. Until I read Juan Du's book I knew what the average person knows about Shenzhen. A city emerged from nothing thanks to its designation as the first Special Economic Zone of China. Juan Du's book busts the myth. She does it by digging into Shenzhen's history, giving voice to its habitants, and providing tons of maps, statistics and data. It's only when we learn about these facts that we can fully understand how Shenzhen came into being the city that is today. Basically, Juan Du's work debunks the official narrative that claims the emergence of Shenzhen is the consequence of direct top-down planning, thus it's a replicable model. The consequences of this are huge. For instance, there are hundreds of SEZs in China and thousands all over the world and none of them has come to be as successful as Shenzhen. Juan Du’s book will help you understand why. Also, at this moment China is building what it claims to be the new Shenzhen just 100 km away from Beijing, in the area of Xiong'an. After reading Juan Du's book I very much believe the Xiong'an area won't live up to its expectations.

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Denise Y. Ho: traditional Chinese: 何若書; simplified Chinese: 何若书; Jyutping: ho4 joek6 syu1; pinyin: Hé Ruòshū In addition, Shenzhen was the first city in China to break the mould of state-owned enterprises with tenured employment. Not only was the city new to the arriving population, but the rules of work were also new.