The Shenzhen Experiment: The Story of China’s Instant City

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Her works have been featured by wide-ranging media such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, Nature, Architectural Record, ICON, Domus, and Journal of Architectural Education. Her latest book The Shenzhen Experiment – The Story of China’s Instant City published by Harvard University Press, is recipient of the 2020 Book of the Year Award for Interdisciplinary Research by ASU’s Institute for Humanities Research. The year of 1979 That was a spring There was a great man Drawing a circle by the South China Sea Mythically building a great city Miraculously forming a mountain of gold Shenzhen! Shenzhen! The Test Pilot of China’s Reform and Opening.

Juan Du asks whether Shenzhen is the blueprint for a modern Chinese city, and what lessons have been learned since Deng Xiaoping supported the opening up of a Special Economic Zone (SEZ). Denise Y. Ho: traditional Chinese: 何若書; simplified Chinese: 何若书; Jyutping: ho4 joek6 syu1; pinyin: Hé Ruòshū

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Juan Du (2007). ‘City Metamorphisis’&‘Urban Ecologies.’ In Qing Yun Ma (Ed.), A Traveling Exhibition, 2007 Shenzhen Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\ Architecture, n.p. Shenzhen: Shenzhen Press Group Publishing House. Juan Du. Beyond Classification. e-flux, architecture (2018). https://www.e-flux.com/architecture/urban-village/169804/beyond-classification/.

Juan Du has practised extensively in the US, Europe, as well as China, and founded her Hong Kong-based office IDU_architecture in 2006, with projects ranging from the extent of built forms to the social and ecological processes of the city. Her works have been exhibited internationally including multiple presentations at the Venice Architecture Biennale and the Shenzhen Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\ Architecture. Juan was the Chief Curator of ‘Quotidian Architectures’, Hong Kong’s participation in the 2010 Venice Biennale of Architecture; Curator of the ‘Housing an Affordable City’ exhibition at the 2011 Shenzhen Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale, and Curator of the 2020 ‘Rethinking Shenzhen’ exhibition at the Shenzhen Museum of Contemporary Art and Urban Planning. In more recent years, Shenzhen has recognised the importance of these neighbourhoods as providers of affordable housing to the city’s working population, and the current urban planning policy is indicating a different approach – one of rehabilitation rather than total redevelopment. Over the next decade, while the socio-economic characteristics will continue to change and evolve, I believe most of the urban villages in Shenzhen will remain. McDonogh, Gary W. (2021). "The Shenzhen Experiment: The Story of China's Instant City. Juan Du, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2020, 384 pp". City & Society. 33 (1). doi: 10.1111/ciso.12370. S2CID 233924593. JD: While it has gone through many reincarnations throughout the past centuries, Shenzhen was certainly not a small fishing village, at least not during its past millennium of history. Juan Du (2017). Industrial Strength: New into Old, The Architectural Review, Issue 1447, December 2017/January 2018.The Shenzhen Experiment: The Story of China’s Instant City,” Book Review. Asian Affairs, April 20, 2020 ( https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03068374.2020.1747878). The Shenzhen effect: Why China’s original ‘model’ city matters more than ever.” CNN, May 23, 2020 ( https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/shenzhen-effect-china-model-city-intl-hnk/). Over the next 14 years, I worked with various communities in both cities. The initial fascination of Shenzhen’s urban villages gradually developed into a more comprehensive understanding of the overall city and the surrounding region. Like all myths, Shenzhen’s has a relationship, albeit distant, with reality. However, the evolution of this city has been far less straightforward—and straightforwardly positive—than this founding mythology suggests. Juan Du (2011). 10 Million Units: Housing and Affordable City. In Terence Riley (Ed.), 2011 Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture Exhibition Catalogue (pp. 26-27). N.p: n.p.

Juan Du (2007). One City, Two Systems. In Stan Fung and Ye Zhu (Ed.), Urban New Spectacle, Contemporary Architecture Invitation Exhibition Catalogue (pp. 70-71). N.p.: n.p. Zhou, Taomo (2020). "The Shenzhen Experiment: The Story of China's Instant City. By Juan Du. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2020. 384 pp. ISBN: 9780674975286 (cloth)". The Journal of Asian Studies. 79 (4): 982–984. doi: 10.1017/S0021911820002478. S2CID 230651396. Juan Du (2018). How I. M. Pei’s Bank of China Tower Changed Hong Kong’s Skyline. CNN. http://edition.cnn.com/style/article/100-years-of-i-m-pei-bank-of-china/index.html (4 Jan, 2018). Juan Du (2009). Shenzhen Central Huanggang Village Redevelopment Research and Proposal, Urban China (Guest ed. Neville Mars), 35, 52-53. Juan Du (2016), ‘From Design with Nature to Design with Carbon? – A Brief History of the Low Carbon City (LCC),’ Urban Environment Design, 101 (6): 228-235.As a result of Shenzhen's extraordinary economic success, the city was viewed as a land of opportunity. There was mass rural migration to the SEZ, and Shenzhen experienced immense population growth. By 2000, 20 million people lived in the Shenzhen SEZ. Despite Urban Villages having a negative stereotype (through 2016) because they didn't fit into the image of a well-planned city, the 300 urban villages - aka, peasant houses and villages in the city (6-7 floor "towers" & "nail houses") supplied half of the residential floor area, and provided affordable housing to its growing population. Additionally, within these communities, township and village enterprises (TVE) sprouted and became the industrial engine of Shenzhen's economy during the SEZ's first decade. There isn't really an argumentative point to the book, besides describing this miracle of transformation. The author kind of highlights the role of individual actors, including of the mayor Liang Xiang and his role in encouraging long term investments in education, schools, and hospitals. She also sort of takes a stance on the urban villages within Shenzhen such as Baishizhou, talking about how important they, and the illegal peasant housing built within them, were to the development and growth of the city as a whole, but there really aren't any strong claims made. Which makes sense because the title is just "The story of China's instant city". Juan Du. Project Home Improvement: Movable Upgrades and Community Engagement in Hong Kong’s Subdivided Units. Domus China (2018): 90-99. The song would eventually become a huge national hit and forever entwined two images in the story of China’s economic reforms: Deng as a kindly “old man”, and the “miracle” of Shenzhen.