Classes of Shenzhen

Photo Credit given to Mary Kay Magistad

Shenzhen is a city of migrants. Says Mary Ann O'Donnell, an anthropologist who has been living in Shenzhen for sixteen years, there are three general classes of people in Shenzhen. The first class is the locals, who were farmers before Shenzhen's urbanization and consist of approximately 300,000 people. The second class is the "white class," the migrants who have poured into Shenzhen and have transformed it into a mega-city in less than 30 years. The migrants look at the locals as the "nouveau riche" of Shenzhen, while the locals look at the migrants as the outsiders who work for them.