Staring and thinking? Hope or despair? A little girl of a migrant worker’s family sits outside her rental home in Bai Shi Zhou, an urban village located in a core district of Shenzhen, China’s first Special Economic Zone and technology innovation city. In 2019 when the photo was taken, Bai Shi Zhou was under massive demolition to further realize Shenzhen’s urban transformation. Close to Shenzhen Bay, a high-end business and commercial space, Bai Shi Zhou is one of the oldest urban villages in the city. It accommodates thousands of migrant workers and migrant white collar professionals who go to work in Shenzhen from both rural and urban places of other parts of China, with a hope of a better life for themselves and their families. Bai Shi Zhou provides its residents with physical proximity to the nearby business district as well as easy access to city facilities with some trade-offs: crammed shabby buildings with rare privacy and security. Bai Shi Zhou’s deconstruction leaves those renters wonder: Where are they going to move?
Cultural Geography Specialty Group 