Chengzhongcun

Rural Urban migration growth in China has been responsible for 70% of the country’s urban population growth over the past three decades. Researchers in the field of Urban growth have dubbed the places where these migrants have settled as 城中村 (Chengzhongcun), or “village amid the city”. Land in these Chengzhongcun are allocated to migrants through village officials, but instead of acquiring an agricultural profession, these migrants instead build houses and rent them out as a way to procure more income. Hundreds of these Chengzhongcun in growing migrant factory cities such as Guangzhou and Shenzhen. The main reasons these villages exist is due to the fact that migrant workers can’t find affordable housing due to their low paying jobs along with the fact that migrants with rural hukou can’t apply for housing even in these villages as rural citizens.

Zhang, Kevin Honglin and Shunfeng Song, “Rural–Urban Migration and Urbanization in China:

Evidence from Time-Series and Cross-Section Analyses,” China Economic Review, 14, 4:386–

400, 2003.