Shanghai Housing Extremes

In Shanghai, with 13.6 million people living in an area of 6340 square kilometers, the population has nearly tripled over the last 50 years and is expected to quadruple by 2015. Although residents have started to grow the Chengzhongcun, this erection of the Chengzhongcun reacts only as a band aid to a national problem instead of solving it. With a formulaic equation for settling in housing, Shanghai’s rural migrants usually settle in the central city slum, then relocate into the intra-urban periphery.

A new group of people called “bridge-headers” have begun to maximize intentions of living near their place of employment. Small and tepid infrastructure such as the “dorms” of two/thirds of construction workers are built on construction sites to ensure timely work. Overall, 36% of migrants live where they work to save commune time and money. These buildings are frequently called “shanties” and are upgraded though they are essentially illegal apartments of “inferior quality on the urban fringe.”

"CONSTRUCTION WORKER HOUSING IN SHANGHAI INVESTIGATIONS OF URBAN MOBILITY – PART 1." Saa. Web. 19 Dec. 2010. .