"The condition of the urban village in Taiyuan is really rare in the provincial capitals throughout the country in area, quantity and proportion." Wu Zhenglong - the municipal party secretary said.
In the urbanization process of the Chinese mainland, the fast expansive city surrounds the original villages. The cultivated land has been levied, leaving the local farmers still staying in their original residence place. In addition, some of the residential lands of the farmers are also retained. Many farmers have no work and they still make a living by renting illegal buildings. The villages have been encircled by the city, thus forming a special phenomenon - urban village.
At present, in various big cities in China, the quantity of the urban village is great. According to the report of “Shanxi Daily”: currently, there are 173 urban villages in Taiyuan, covering an area of 191 square kilometers.
The urban village is just like a scar of the city. The serious problems of bad environmental surrounding-narrow alley, flowing sewage and poor public security have affected the development of the city
In recent years, many cities have launched the large-scale dismantling and reconstructing projects. Taiyuan started to reconstruct the urban village vigorously since 2015. The web of The People's Government of Shanxi Province display that Taiyuan has initiated 82 reconstructing projects of the urban villages till now, in which 11 projects have already completed basically. It is estimated that all the reconstructing tasks would be finished in 2020.
When the urban villages have been reconstructed, the original residences of the villagers will be turned into the commercial housings with complete certificates. They can live by themselves, rent or sell the houses. Therefore, the incomes of the villagers have been increased. Moreover, the comprehensive district with full functions contains tremendous business opportunities and provides many employment posts for the villagers.
"After demolition, we moved to the new community with good surroundings and complete facilities. Moreover, the government gives us a compensatory payment of 200,000RMB. In the future, when the commercial building is constructed in the community, we can rent a shop to maintain the livelihood." Li Qi, who lived in Qinxian village said.
After reconstructing the urban villages, many migrant workers will loss the low-rent housings. Therefore, it is very difficult for them to make a living. Mr. Liu - the secretary of the urban village reconstructing command center of Taiyuan said: "in the reconstruction process, the biggest problem we come across is the placement of the residents". The original residents can be replaced with commercial housings of the equivalent acreages according to the land size or they can get cash subsidy.
However, most of the people living in the urban village are migrant workers with low income. If this urban village disappears, they will transfer to other remoter urban villages. However, if all the urban villages are reconstructed, where can they go? In the reconstruction process of the urban villages, it has been an important problem which requires to be solved by the government urgently as to how to arrange the migrant workers, so as to provide the low-rent housings for their survival.
There are no urban villages in foreign countries, instead there are many "slum districts". In China, there are no “slum districts”. But the urban village is nothing new. In such communities, we can see more pains and bitters of being abandoned by the modern metropolis.
Mr.Wang - a hairdresser who have lived in Dama Village for seven years said helplessly: “The Dama village is going to be dismantled soon. Then I need to find a new job. The landlord asks us to move away before March. The whole of my family, we don't know where to move”.
