detail, incense burner, julong village

addresses in chinese read from the largest to the smallest unit. last week, for example, i went to guangdong province, dongguan city, wangniudun township, julong village (广东省东莞市望牛顿镇聚龙村). in terms of the use and organization of the built environment, this administrative hierarchy takes clear form. my trip began at the shenzhen city, luohu bus station, transvessed guangdong’s elaborate (and still expanding) highway network, passed through dongguan city center, and stoped on niuwangdun’s main street, which is narrower and less built up than downtown dongguan, which in turn, is less densely built than is downtown shenzhen, where the journey began. this pattern of narrower streets, shorter buildings, and fewer cars continued with each stage of the journey. from main street, niuwangdun toward julong village, for example, i walked on a main street of four lanes, turned onto a two lane street, stepped onto the one lane street that bordered the julong river, and then turned into a gated alley wide enough to accomodate motorbikes and pedestrians.

in addition to reiterating administrave ranking (provinces administer cities, which administer townships, which administer villages), chinese addresses also tell you whether or not an administrative unit is urban or rural. thus, dongguan (shi) is an urban administrative unit, while wangniudun (zhen) and and julong (cun) are rural levels. in contrast, i live in shenzhen city, futian district, huafu street office, tianmian neighborhood (深圳市福田区华富街道办事处田面居委会). district (qu), street office (jiedao banshichu), and neighborhood (juweihui) are urban designations. not unexpectedly, rural and urban designations also take clear form in the built environment. significantly, rural forms tend to be more traditional and urban forms tend to be more modern or western. thus, for example, the buildings in dongguan city, especially the new city plaza, reflect contemporary architectural trends, while in julong village traditional housing abuts updated one-story homes (平房 literally means flat house and refers to traditional village homes throughout china).

in the prc, rural and urban designations do not simply refer to landuse and population, but also to how the land is used. urban areas are directly under the state, where enterprises, corporations, and individuals can obtain landuse rights (in a process modelled after hong kong’s), but the land ultimately belongs to the state. in contrast, in rural areas, farmers have legal rights to land both for livelihood (growing crops) and housing. there are two main consequences of this situation. first, urban areas have been designated for industrialization, while rural areas have been designated for agricultural production. legally, one can only build a factory in an urban area (although in practice, this has been erroding since deng xiaoping’s southern tour in 1992). second, in terms of property, the traditional, one-stories in the villages are situated on land that belongs to the farmer. in contrast, an urban residents purchase a condo in a highrise, but they do not have eternal rights to it because the land on which the building stands still belongs to the state.

for the past few years, then, dongguan city has been a poster child of sorts for guangdong’s ongoing economic boom. if online statistics are to be believed, from 1999 to 2003, dongguan’s economy grew at a rate of 18.4% a year, enough to make the city the fourth fastest growing in guangdong and 10.3% higher than the national average. now before i went to julong village, i didn’t really think that much about dongguan and when i did it was in terms of boomtown evils: exploitation, prostitution, and pollution. i frequently passed by dongguan on my way to guangzhou and, like supernaut, was both distressed and fascinated by dongguan’s industrial landscape.

now, what’s important about townships like wangniudun is that much of the guangdong boom is actually located in rural townships and villages. administratively, townships are hybrids; they are rural cities. this means that in niuwangdun, julong villagers can invest in industrial production (because it is a city), but that the landuse rights return to villagers, both collectively and individually, because they hold eternal land rights. this loophole has provided guangdong townships and villages with the incentive and flexibility to industrialize in different ways from cities. on the one hand, it has also enabled villagers to become wealthy independent of the state. in shenzhen, this loophole inspired the rural urbanization movement, which changed the administrative status of shenzhen’s farmers from rural to urban, with the result that their children no longer have traditional rights to the land. on the other hand, it has produced a distinctive landscape of tiled multi-story housing, factories, and traditional remnants. for a sense of the emplacements that rural urbanization produces, please visit wangniudun township, julong village.