Understanding Crime in Villages-in-the-City in China

A Social and Behavioral Approach

Zhanguo Liu, T. Wing Lo

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781000537086
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychologie
• Subtopic: Psychologie sociale

Rapid urbanization of economic zones in China has resulted in a special social phenomenon: "villages-in-the-city." Underdeveloped villages are absorbed during the expansion of urban areas, while retaining their rustic characteristics. Due to the rural characteristics of these areas, social security is much lower compared with the urbanized city. This book uses Tang Village, a remote area in the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, as an example to establish a comprehensive analytical framework by integrating existing crime theories in analyzing villages-in-the-city. The analysis covers the community, individual, and macro levels to detail the diverse social and behavioral factors causing crime at multiple levels. First, a brief history of the urbanization process of Tang Village is provided to establish how urban planning contributed to the issues in the village today. The authors go on to explain how socially disorganized communities dictate the crime hotspots and the common types of crime. The book examines other risk factors that may contribute to the level of crime such as weak social controls, building density, and floating populations of poor working-class migrants. The routine activities of victims, offenders, and guardians are examined. The book concludes with the current trends in the social structure within the villages-in-the-city and their expected outcome after urbanization.

1 Introduction

Many cities in the world, such as Mumbai in India and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, have experienced urbanization in the last century. Urbanization is always accompanied by a large number of rural people migrating to cities. In China, peasant workers from rural areas need residences when they migrate to cities, but they cannot afford the city housing. Consequently, many poor settlements or slum areas emerge in urban areas (McCaffree 2018; Shen 2018). China has also experienced rapid urbanization over the last two decades. The land upon which the rapid expansion of cities takes place is in city suburbs and the surrounding countryside. Hence, many villages in the suburbs are absorbed by the cities, and a special social phenomenon known as “villages-in-the-city” [Cheng Zhong Cun, 城中村] has emerged (Xie 2005).

Emergence of villages-in-the-city

Villages-in-the-city are products of rapid urbanization and peasant migration in China. As illustrated in Figure 1.1, the left-hand image shows a typical villages-and-city community before urbanization. The large circle in the figure is a city, and the several small circles are villages that are located outside the city’s territories before urbanization. The right-hand image shows the villages-in-the-city community. After urbanization, villages are included in the city’s territories. These villages seem to be included in, and also separated from, the city at the same time, which is a Chinese characteristic of urbanization. Although the villages are independent of the city, they greatly benefit from its expansion. Agricultural land is changed into different forms of residential, industrial, or commercial land. The transformation of land use has attracted a large number of migrant workers from remote provinces to work in factories or engage in business in cities, thus giving rise to a huge residential market, but the government cannot efficiently meet the sudden demand for low-rental housing. To meet such housing needs and to maximize their own profits, indigenous villagers build houses on their collectives and farmland, creating a special community: villages-in-the-city.

Figure 1.1 The evolution of villages-in-the-city

China is a country with a huge population and large amounts of arable land and therefore has many villages. In 2011, 437 villages-in-the-city were located in Xi’an, 138 in Guangzhou, 71 in Nanjing, 26 in Zhuhai, and 196 in Chongqing (Ministry of Land and Resources 2011; Yang 2011). It was also reported that there were more than 300 villages-in-the-city within Rings Five and Six in Beijing in 2018 (Wen et al. 2018), and 168 in Wuhan in 2015 (Huang and Liu 2015). The intense growth of cities is another factor contributing to the growth of villages-in-the-city in the whole of China. For instance, the urbanization of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone was accompanied by the influx of a large rural population and the creation of villages-in-the-city in the early 2000s. By the end of 2008, Shenzhen had 8.76 million regular residents [Nian mo changzhu renkou 年末常住人口]; 2.28 million of them had a residence card [Huji renkou 户籍人口], and 6.48 million had a temporary residence card [Fei huji renkou 非户籍人口]. However, the actual population of Shenzhen was 12.7 million; 3.92 million of them were believed to comprise the migrant or floating population (Shenzhen Statistics Bureau and National Statistics Bureau, Shenzhen Investigation Team 2009, p.53). In 2006, 48.7% of the floating population in Shenzhen lived in villages-in-the-city.¹

Villages-in-the-city as hotspots for crime

In China, many poor settlements in urban areas are found in villages-in-the-city because of the existence of a dual land system in which urban land is owned by the state, whereas rural land is owned by rural collectives, thus creating different property rights within the same territory. Villagers remain villagers, not city residents, although the villages are somewhat merged into the city. Moreover, farmland still belongs to rural collectives and is not considered urban land. The city government can neither control the villagers nor plan what to do with their land. Moreover, the social organization, social networks, social culture, and architectural styles of villages are dramatically different from those of the city.

Under the dual land system, city residents have better social security and welfare systems than the villagers. During the process of urbanization, when the rural farmland is no longer in use but is not yet under requisition, the indigenous villagers need another means to earn a living. To protect their own interests, maximizing the benefits from their remaining and unused farmland becomes the inevitable choice. They use the village space to build as many rental houses as they can afford, but they have no integrated plan. The rental houses are built in high-density areas, and thus all buildings in villages-in-the-city are in a state of serious disorder (Li and Huang 2007). For example, the buildings do not have sufficient spaces in between each other, or the spaces are so narrow that they allow passage for only one person at a time. Some indigenous villagers continue to add new floors to existing building structures, and thus two- to three-story buildings are turned into six- to seven-story ones. Take as an example the villages-in-the-city in Futian District in Shenzhen. They have a plot ratio of more than 4.0 and an average building density of 65%. The building density of villages-in-the-city in Suzhou ranges from 60% to 80% (Research Group of the Ministry of Construction 2007).

A large number of migrant workers live in rental houses in villages-in-the-city because of the low rental costs and proximity to their workplaces. Therefore, villages-in-the-city have gradually become low-cost housing centers for low-income migrant workers. The original public facilities in villages-in-the-city are insufficient to cater to the residents’ needs because of the rapid increase in population and the number of buildings. Villages-in-the-city cannot afford new infrastructure because of constraints in construction, space, and property rights, resulting in serious shortages in public facilities and services. Specifically, streets are narrow and congested; electricity, telecommunications routes, and water and gas pipelines are disorganized; lighting, ventilation, and drainage are insufficient; and sanitation is poor. Overall, villages-in-the-city give people an impression of being “dirty, chaotic, and poor.”

Because of the dual land system, the city government hesitates to invest substantial financial and social resources for the residents in villages-in-the-city. The villages-in-the-city are resigned to being responsible for their own public facilities and services, but they do not have effective management and implementation strategies to meet the tremendous needs of the rising population. In particular, indigenous villagers are unwilling to prohibit illegal buildings and the underground economy in order to preserve their own financial interests. A large proportion of the floating population moving into villages-in-the-city is made up of poor peasant workers looking for jobs in the city, making the villages the breeding ground for social disorder and crime (Du et al. 2019; Lo and Jiang 2006; Shen 2018).

The target community

Villages-in-the-city are labelled as crime hotspots in cities because of their high crime and victimization rate (Jiang et al. 2013). In the eyes of the media, villages-in-the-city denote a poor environment, bad living conditions, gang violence, gambling, and drug trafficking. Why do many crimes happen in villages-in-the-city? How does the crime rate rise? What are the basic characteristics of crimes in villages-in-the-city? In this ethnographic research, a target community, Tang Village, was used as the focal point for the study of crime conditions in villages-in-the-city and the mechanisms that lead to the crime.

Tang Village is located in the Nanshan District in Shenzhen. It used to be a remote area in Shenzhen and was initially inhabited by 230 indigenous villagers who share the surname of Zheng. According to our interview with a neighborhood committee officer, a native villager, Tang Village used to have 4,800 acres of agricultural land in 1992, of which 900 acres were paddy fields, 100 acres was dry land, and 3,000 acres was mountainous land. The indigenous villagers primarily relied on growing crops, such as rice, sugar cane, alfalfa, and peanuts, as their main sources of income.

Tang Village began to develop industries in the 1980s. To attract foreign investors and to promote economic development of the village as well as that of other southeastern villages, the local government constructed an asphalt road that led to Tang Village. The indigenous villagers also constructed infrastructure that they rented out to investors, which was transformed into factories in 1983.

The first factory was built beside the basketball court of the old village. A two-story factory was constructed on a 1,200-square-meter area; its construction was financed through a bank loan. Each square meter of land was rented out for RMB 7 to 8 [RMB 7 = US$1]. The factory workers, who migrated from other areas within Guangdong Province, initially decided to stay in the village warehouse instead of renting rooms from the indigenous villagers. The factory mainly produced watches, gloves, and other items. Only a few indigenous villagers worked in the factory because they were more accustomed to farming. The village repaid the bank in less than two years, and the dividend of each share of the natives exceeded RMB1,000.

The villagers used their shares to build two-story cement houses that they rented out to factory workers for additional income. Industry zone A was built from 1991 to 1992 to construct additional factories within the village. From 1992 to 1993, a large area of mountainous land was bought from the village by the city government for the development of a golf course. The villagers used the payment for the construction of a new village with four-story residential buildings. As more migrant workers began to move into the village, the indigenous villagers moved into the newly constructed village and rented out their old houses to the workers. In 1992, the indigenous villagers stopped engaging in agricultural activities because most of their farmland had been transformed into factory buildings and rental houses. From thereon, Tang Village was transformed into an industrial area when two additional industrial zones were built, namely, the Tongfuyu industrial zone (同富裕工业区) in 1993–94, and industry zone B in 1996–97.

The construction of these industrial zones attracted even more migrant workers into Tang Village, further exacerbating the rental demand (Li and Huang 2007). The land compensation fees and easy credit policies during that period drove the indigenous villagers into reconstructing the old Tang Village from 2000 to 2003 by building more seven-story buildings. However, the reconstruction was not supported by a unified plan and was merely based on the financial considerations of each family, thus leading to disarray and overcrowding in the old village. Realizing that these activities would only lead to serious social problems, the local government enacted policies to prevent further building expansions in 2004. Despite this control, the old Tang Village had already been transformed into a jungle of cement buildings before such policies were implemented.

Consequently, the reform and open-door policy of China, as well as the rapid development of Shenzhen, discouraged the indigenous villagers from engaging in farming activities as they began to develop the collective economy. The village farmland was allotted to the construction of factory buildings, which the villagers then leased to commercial firms to make money. Some was used to build seven-story residential buildings for migrant workers. At the same time, an increasing number of rural farmers in remote provinces of China migrated to villages-in-the-city, such as Tang Village, to look for opportunities. They are called migrant workers (Shen 2018) because they still own property in the remote provinces, and their families are still engaged in farming there. They rented apartments in Tang Village because they could not afford houses in the city, and the city government could not provide them with low-rent housing. Such rapid economic and housing development has transformed Tang Village into a village-in-the-city.

Research objectives

As a special social phenomenon in China, villages-in-the-city are created during rapid urbanization. Rapid urbanization brings villages-in-the-city high population density, random buildings, and a lack of municipal facilities and public services. All these factors have fostered crime, making villages-in-the-city the crime hotspots of a city. This book aims to establish a comprehensive analytical framework by integrating existing crime theories to analyze villages-in-the-city. Three levels of analysis—community, individual, and macro level—were adopted to identify the diverse key factors regarding the causes of crime at multiple levels. Against this background, several specific objectives were formulated.

First, since villages-in-the-city are regarded as socially disorganized communities that often become crime hotspots, we explore the basic conditions of crime in Tang Village, including the types of crime committed and crime hotspots, so as to set a background for the subsequent discussion of offenders, victims, and guardians.

Second, continuous construction of buildings, the poor economic situation of the residents, and limited space have turned villages-in-the-city into breeding grounds for criminals. We examine the community mechanisms that may give rise to crime in Tang Village, such as the high density of buildings, low income, residential mobility, ethnic heterogeneity, and collective efficacy.

Third, routine activities have provided potential criminals with suitable targets, including valuable articles, physical visibility, and access, to conduct illegal activities. We aim to identify the mechanisms in villages-in-the-city that allow them to become hotspots of crime from the perspective of victims, including their lifestyles and responses to crime.

Fourth, villages-in-the-city are essentially the settlements of rural workers when they move into cities. We review how the migrant workers became offenders, how their factory life stressed them and forced them to mingle with gangs. The mechanisms behind the crime in Tang Village are analyzed from the perspective of offenders.

Fifth, there are various agents of formal and informal social control in villages-in-the-city. We analyze the capability of these guardians in relation to crime control in Tang Village. This involves a consideration of the kinds of guardians in operation, such as the police, comprehensive assistance coordinators, security guards, landowners, and technical prevention, their effectiveness in crime prevention and law enforcement, and the issues, challenges, and security risks faced by them.

Sixth, as villages-in-the-city are embedded in a broader political and economic environment, we examine how crime situations in Tang Village could be affected by external social forces, and how change in government policies could have an impact on changing the crime-breeding environment in villages-in-the-city.

Methodology

The present study adopted an ethnographic research method. One of the researchers (the first author) lived and worked in a place close to Tang Village for five years. He spent time hanging around in the community and mingled with people there. His role as a university researcher facilitated him making friends with different community agents. In addition, several methods of data collection were used, including archive studies and a series of community observations and field interviews.

Archive studies

Shenzhen Floating Population and Rental Management System. The Shenzhen Floating Population and Rental Management System collects demographic data on the floating population in villages-in-the-city. This system can be accessed through the Tang Village Station. The database provides data on the basic demographic features of the Tang Village residents, such as the total population, the residents’ names, ages, addresses, types of identity card, ethnic groups, gender, education, marital status, occupations, housing types, and Hukou (household information). The data on such features are collected by comprehensive assistance coordinators (綜合協管員) (see discussion in Chapter 7).

Criminal records from security guards. The secur...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Crimes in Tang Village
• 3. Individual, community, and macro levels of analysis
• 4. Community disorganization in Tang Village
• 5. Suitable targets of crime
• 6. Motivated offenders
• 7. Incapability of guardians
• 8. Political economy and crime in Tang Village
• 9. Conclusions
• Appendix
• References
• Index