Shenzhen

— from Rural Village to the World’s Largest Megalopolis

By Ilaria Maria Sala

 

1 “It should be here somewhere,” says Leo Houng, a retired celloplayer with the Hong Kong Philharmonic. We are in a tangle of small streets incentral Shenzhen, just next to Lao Jie (“Old Street”) underground station. LaoJie has existed for decades, which is more than can be said for most of Shenzhen.

 

2 When Houng stayed herein 1974 on his way to Hong Kong, Old Street was pretty much the only roadaround — with just a few lanes leading off it, dotted with simple restaurantsand a handful of small shops. From there, unpaved alleys soon merged with thesurrounding open countryside — an unimaginable landscape from today’ssuffocating vantage point.

 

3 “Back then it smelled very green; it smelled of countryside,” Houngsays. “There was no pollution or industrialisation, just natural smells.”

 

4 Shenzhen, a city of around 11 million people, is now merely oneelement of the Pearl River Delta, the world’s largest continuously urbanisedarea with a population of more than 60 million people — not including all theundocumented migrants, nor the inhabitants of its two special administrativeregions, Hong Kong (7.5 million) and Macao (580,000).

 

5 “I’d be happy to ask someone if they know where there used to be aschool here, but these people are all so young,” says Houng, staring at themultitude of shop assistants standing on the pavement in front of theirassorted fashion stores. “These people have no idea what the city looked likebefore, or what its streets were called.”

 

6 A small map near the station’s exit includes some of the placenames Houng remembers — but it is not enough to reorient him in such modifiedsurroundings. The young faces all around speak in a multitude of Chineseaccents, revealing the melting pot that Shenzhen has become.

 

7 People have been arriving here from every corner of China sinceMay 1980, when the country’s reformist leader Deng Xiaoping launched one of theboldest economic experiments ever attempted, kickstarting the plan to turnChina from a conventional central planning economy into the global powerhouseit is today.

 

8 Shenzhen, with fewer than 30,000 inhabitants scattered in a numberof small village clusters, made history as China’s first “special economiczone”, where foreign direct investments and private enterprises were allowed.The impact was immediate, and profound. No wonder Houng feels disoriented.

 

9 He recalls: “My father, a German-trained chemist, had left forHong Kong in the early 60s, when political trouble for those who had returnedfrom abroad seemed inevitable. It took us 12 years to be reunited.”

 

10 Forty years ago, the road between Shenzhen and Hong Kongconsisted of fields and small military outposts patrolling the border. “See?”says Houng, pointing at a little watchtower atop a hill. “That tower wasalready there in 1974; seeing it meant you were nearly on the Hong Kong side.”

 

11 Today, crowds of people push their way towards the border controls,many pulling trolleys stuffed with goods purchased in Hong Kong to be resold ata profit in the Chinese mainland.

 

12 After settling safely in Hong Kong, Houng has revisited Shenzhen regularlyover the years, witnessing its extraordinary period of change. From the 1980sonwards, it happened at unthinkable speed.

 

13 “All of a sudden, from one year to the next, there were craneseverywhere,” Houng says. “The whole place was a construction site. Theindustrial area in the west of Shenzhen started putting up office buildings andfactories very fast, even if there was nobody occupying them yet.”

 

14 In no time at all, the rural villages that once dotted thelandscape had simply disappeared.

 

15 Of Shenzhen’s current 11 million residents, only a quarter holdurban identity cards. The other nine million are migrants. They are part of a“floating population” that moves around from season to season, gettingtemporary jobs for as long as they are available, with no rights or access toservices.

 

16 “By the 80s the smell also changed, with all these buildings comingup. Shenzhen did not smell green any more. You started to smell the cement andthe dust as soon as you got off the train.”

 

Urbanization at full speednationwide

17 Nowhere on the planet has there been urbanisation at the scale andspeed of the Pearl River Delta. Its nine cities — Guangzhou, Foshan, Zhaoqing,Shenzhen, Dongguan, Huizhou, Jiangmen, Zhongshan and Zhuhai — were earmarked byChina’s central planners to comprise a single, ultra-connected megalopolis bythe year 2030.

 

18 On the way from Shenzhen to Guangzhou, the few remaining fieldsaround Dongguan are still putting up a valiant fight against the encroachingskyscrapers — most of which are not yet completed, but which carry optimisticbanners advertising a phone number to call in order to invest in real estate.

 

19 Having sped up since the 1980s, this process took on an even greaterurgency after the Central Urbanisation Work Conference held in Beijing in 2013,during which the Chinese leadership decided that urbanisation was “the roadChina must take in its modernisation drive”, according to a Xinhua dispatchshortly afterwards.

 

20 Everywhere, the change in China’s urban landscape has been happeningat an ever-increasing rate on an unprecedented scale.

 

深圳——从小乡村到世界最大的城市群

艾拉瑞尔·玛利亚·萨拉

 

1 “应该就在这附近，”利奥·洪（音）说。他是香港管弦乐团退休的大提琴手。我们在深圳市中心小街纵横交错的地段上，紧挨着地铁老街站。老街已经有好几十年的历史，可以说比深圳大多数地方都要老。

2 1974年洪前往香港在此逗留时，几乎就只有老街一条街，沿街有几条小巷岔出，有几家普普通通的饭店，还有几家小店铺。老街尽头就是泥路，转眼隐没在四周田野之中。站在今天喧闹嘈杂的高处往下看，简直难以想象当的景象。

3 “那时周围绿意盎然，充满了田野气息，”洪说道。“过去没有污染，没有工业化，只有自然的气息。”

4 人口大约1,100万的深圳市只是珠江三角洲的一部分。珠江三角洲是世界上最大的持续城镇化的地区，人口超过6,000万，这还不包括所有那些无证流动打工者，也不包括香港(750万人)、澳门（58万人）两个特别行政区的居民。

5 “我很想问有没有谁知道以前一所学校的位置在哪里，可这些人太年轻了，”洪打量着路边人行道上林林总总时装店前站着的店员说道。“这些人不知道这个城市以前是怎么样的，也说不出以前的街名。”

6 地铁出口处一张小小的地图上有些地名洪还记得，但周围面目全非，不足以让他找到方向。身边一张张年轻的脸庞，操着各种各样的汉语口音，表明深圳已经成为一个大熔炉。

7 1980年5月，中国改革领袖邓小平发动了历史上最大胆的经济改革，启动了将中国从传统的中央计划经济转变为今天这样的世界经济强国的引擎。自那以后，人们从全国各地来到这里。

8 当时深圳的人口不到3万、散居在几个小村落里。它破天荒，成为中国第一个经济特区，允许外商直接投资，允许创办私营企业。其反响直接而深远。今天洪找不着方向也就不足为怪了。

9 他回忆道：“我父亲是留学德国的化学家，60年代初留学归国人员似乎不可避免地受到政治冲击，于是他就去了香港。12年后一家人才团聚。”

10 40年前，深圳、香港之间都是农田，再就是巡逻边界的小规模军事岗哨。“看到没？”洪指着山顶上一个小瞭望塔说。“那个塔1974年就在那儿了，看到塔意味着就要进入香港地界了。”

11 如今人群蜂拥着挤向边境检查站，不少人拉着手推车，满载着在香港采购的、回大陆转售赚取利润的商品。

12 在香港安居的洪这些年常回深圳，目睹了这个城市惊人的变化。20世纪80年代以来，深圳变化的速度令人不可思议。

13 “突然之间，一年接着一年，四处就起重机遍布，”洪说。“整个深圳就是一个建筑工地。在深圳西部的工业区，办公楼和厂房很快拔地而起，尽管那时都还没人进驻。”

14 原来散布在这块地上的小乡村一下子就消失了。

15 深圳现有居民1,100万，只有四分之一有城镇户口，还有900万都是流动务工人员。他们是“流动人口”的一部分，随季节流动，有临时工做，他们就呆着，很多权益和服务都享受不到。

16 “到80年代，随着高楼的建起，城市的气息也发生了变化。深圳不再绿意盎然。一下火车你就闻到水泥和粉尘味。”

全国范围的高速城镇化

17 珠江三角洲城镇化的规模与速度举世无双。中央规划：到2030年，该地区9个城市——广州、佛山、肇庆、深圳、东莞、惠州、江门、中山和珠海——将发展成为一个高度协调的城市群。

18 从深圳到广州的一路上，只有东莞周围尚有所剩无几的农田，它们还在顽强抵御着高楼的不断蚕食。高楼多数还在建造之中，都挂着令人振奋的横幅，上面有电话号码，意欲投资房地产的人可以拨打。

19 20世纪80年代以来，城镇化建设提速，2013年在北京召开的中央城镇化工作会议之后，发展势头更加迅急。该会议之后不久，新华社报道说：中国领导人在会议期间决议：城镇化是“中国现代化进程的必由之路”。

20 全中国各地，城镇化不断加速，规模空前。