Shanty towns in the northeast get a facelift

By Wu Yong and He Na (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-02-16 07:13

A man looks at a renovation plan of a shanty area in Shenyang, capital of Northeast China's Liaoning Province. Zhao Jingdong

Sun Jianwei got married earlier this month. The 39-year-old thus became the 21st bridegroom of Modi community, which lives in Fushun city in Northeast China's Liaoning Province, since June last year.

This piece of information would never have become news but for the fact that no woman wanted to get married into the 800-family Modi community even a year ago. The reason for that was not difficult to find because the community lived in one of the largest shanty towns on the western outskirts of Fushun. Finding brides for the men was almost impossible because of the poor and unhealthy living condition in the shanty town, says Wang Yajun, chief of Modi Community.

The town's list of woes used to read almost like a horror story: no tap water, no central heating system, no metalled road, no primary school. In fact, its only primary school closed down in the mid-1980s because nobody wanted to send their children to study there. If these were not enough to scare away prospective brides, then the town's population mix definitely was. The 3,000-odd Modi community had 78 single-parent families, 130 bachelors over the age of 30 and 1,084 laid-off workers.

But all that changed once the local government began its large-scale program to transform shanty towns and, if need be, relocate its inhabitants in June 2005. Thirteen six-storey residential buildings had come up by the end of that year, with all the apartments equipped with basic facilities, including tap water, central heating system and even a gym.

And most importantly, the residents paid small amounts to get their new houses. The deal was that a family doesn't pay if the floor space of its apartment was equal to that of its shanty. But it pays a third or half the market price for any additional area it wants to get. Wang says on average a family had to pay just 10,000 yuan ($1,250) for a new house.

The new groom, Sun, also bought an additional 45-square-meter house. "I got two important things done this year: getting a wife and a new house," he says, trying to hide his smile.

This is the tale of only one city. Liaoning construction bureau figures show that it transformed almost 12 million square meters of shanties in 14 cities, helping 1.2 million people from 345,000 families to get a proper house and improve their living conditions.

The other two provinces in Northeast China, Jilin and Heilongjiang, too, have undertaken similar projects. Jilin has planned to transform 15 million square meters in shanty towns between 2006 and 2008, out of which 9.5 million square meters were refurbished in 2006, with 607,000 people getting new and decent accommodations.

Heilongjiang plans to upgrade 2.3 million square meters in shanty towns this year, and already assigned a quota to each city.

Northeast China was one the industrial power houses of the People's Republic China after it was founded in 1949. But the eastern provinces have left it far behind in the past couple of decades. Compounding this problem is the large number of laid-off workers, who lost their jobs as the country launched a large-scale reform of State-owned enterprises (SOEs). This made the living condition in the shanty towns even worse.

The poverty and plight of the laid-workers who once powered the SOEs, especially coalmines, prompted the central government to give them a better life.

Fushun was a major coal base of China from the 1950s to the 1980s and employed about 20,000 workers at its peak. But even then, local SOEs didn't provide enough houses for the workers before the 1990s because the motto then was: production overrides the principle living leisure. And then in the early 1990's, most of the mines went bankrupt because coal deposits in the mines had depleted.

The laid-off workers didn't have enough money to even rent a proper house, let alone buying one. So they began settling in large groups on the outskirts of the city in the last decade. And since these settlements were not planned, they lacked even the basic amenities. The result: their condition worsened as the surrounding areas developed, and came to be called "villages in the city".

Fushun government figures show that its shanty towns were spread over 3.18 million square meters where 320,000 people, or one-fifth of its population, live. "Let alone live, no one wants to even go there," says Zhao Qibin, a senior official of the Fushun Information Office. "The shanty-town renovation project is about social justice and stability," says Professor Guo Enzhang of the China Urban Planning Society.

In fact, the Fushun government began a pilot shanty-town transformation project as early as 1987, says Liu Guoqiang, chief of Fushun Information Office. But it could not afford to pay for it alone. In 2003, it tried to introduce real estate developers to overcome the problem. But the shanty dwellers protested vehemently against the move because they said they wouldn't be able to pay for a new house elsewhere with the compensation paid to them for their relocation.

"The local government alone could not solve the problem. The provincial and central governments had to give a helping hand," Liu says. "So we acted quickly to push forward this project when the provincial government launched the project." Fushun is the first city under the project.

Jilin's capital Changchun faced the same problem as Fushun. "The sole aim of the project is to improve the living conditions of the people. Therefore, all the policies are designed to benefit the people," says Li Shucheng, an official in charge of demolition and relocation work in Changchun.

Those who have been relocated, like their Fushun counterparts, don't have to pay for a house that is equal in area to their shanty. They pay only for additional area they want, and that much less than the prevailing market price.

The provincial government plans to help the laid-off workers find new jobs, too. And the Fushun government is working on these lines to organize labor services, provide free professional training and help laid-off workers set up their own business. As a result of that not a single family in the city is without at least one earning member, a senior Fushun government official has claimed.

"We set the regulation that it's the government's duty to help people who want to work find a job within a month," Liu says. In fact, the shanty renovation project has not only benefited shanty dwellers, but also the city as a whole.

"Nobody wants to invest in a city with so many shanty towns. So the renovation program is an investment for our future development," says Benxi city mayor Gang Rui.

"What we are doing is not only demolishing the shanty towns, but also establishing new and better ties with the people,"' says Li Keqiang, Party chief of Liaoning Province.

But some experts say the government-dominated model has a drawback. "I totally agree with the government's intention to help the people. But I think this model could lead to the setting up of new shanty towns," in the hope that the government would help them too, says Liu Changjie, who writes for an economic newspaper. He fears that the shanty-dwellers would trap others by creating an even bigger shanty town, creating more trouble.

Wang Jun, of a Benxi publishing house, corroborates Liu Changjie, and says the newly developed area is still the last place he wants to move in to.

Also, source close to the Benxi government say it has to pay for the heating costs for two-thirds of the dwellers because they cannot afford the more than 1,000 yuan ($125) bill.

"The ultimate solution to all these problems, it seems, is providing jobs to all able-bodied person," says Liu Guoqiang.

Critics and cynics are welcome to express their views, some of which could prove beneficial to the project, but Liaoning has set an example that other provinces, including Jilin, Heilongjiang and Shanxi, are now ready to emulate.

And as for the Modi community in Fushun, it is having the best time in decades. Another 15 of its men will get married by May.

(China Daily 02/16/2007 page12)