“Village” may not seem like the right term for a cluster of tenement-style walkups that can house more than 100,000 people. Chengzhongcun hang onto the name partly because of the familiarity evoked by the traditions and small-scale businesses that thrive among their migrant populations, and partly because when modern Shenzhen began growing, these places really were just villages in the middle of the city. — foreignpolicy.com
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Interesting article. These urban villages are fascinating. I never had the opportunity to visit Kowloon Walled City, but I imagine that as the logical endpoint of such a development. Constrained by space, property owners build their small lots ever-upward, until the former 'village' is a dense Borg-Cube of three-dimensional urbanism. I recall visiting one of these villages in Shenzhen, and finding an old temple subsumed in the density, surrounded by precarious towers, with a net strewn across the void, stretched above the upturned eaves of the temple, protecting it from falling trash.....
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