In 2008, when a British man discovered photos of what appeared to be a young factory girl posing at an assembly line on his brand new iPhone, the Shenzhen factory worker became an overnight Internet superstar. The photos were uploaded onto an online forum and went viral. People all over the world started to speculate about the identity of “iPhone Girl.”¹ In reality, she is one of the many rural migrants who have flocked to major cities in China in search of a job. Like many “factory girls” and “factory boys,” she worked for a large manufacturing corporation, namely, the...

China’s cities are being rebuilt on a phenomenal scale with amazing speed, and are driven headlong into the twenty-first century by an apparently insatiable demand for factories, condominiums, office towers and shopping malls. But if you look carefully down some of the backstreets of the old industrial districts, you can still find architectural remnants of an earlier era—small clusters of three- or four-story brick apartment blocks—austere, unadorned and, these days, rather run-down. Believe it or not, these drab blocks, built in the 1950s and 1960s, were once seen as the pinnacle of modern living, the pride of those...

Since the 1970s, the Pearl River Delta (PRD) has been a “factory to the world,” producing a multitude of goods for global export, inverting the earlier practice since 1949, when China mainly manufactured for itself. The postwar Chinese factory towns were located in northern China and around Shanghai, while South China remained largely agrarian. Hong Kong, then still a British colony, was industrializing rapidly from the 1950s to the 1970s in response to the global demand for cheap consumer goods such as textiles, toys and electronics, supported by its open financial markets and advanced shipping industry. It was the 1960s’...

After thirty years of astounding and highly celebrated economic growth at breakneck speed, the Pearl River Delta is lately famed for a less remarkable achievement. The PRD has become one of China’s most polluted and ecologically disturbed urban constructs.

Environmental degradation is troubling the mega region. Aging and highly-polluting industries supported by poorly developed infrastructures, exponential population growth, and extensive rural and urban sprawl are dominating the PRD’s factory landscape. Natural assets, namely, water, air, soil and biodiversity, have been reported by the World Bank and the United Nations to be seriously and irreversibly damaged. Consequently, people’s health and livelihoods...

According to a recent survey by an official trade union organization, 99 percent of migrant workers in the industrial hub of Shenzhen would rather stay in the city than return to their hometowns.¹ Analysts often note that this indicates a huge cultural change from the earlier generation of migrant workers, who tended to come to the city for short periods of time to earn money but always intended to return home. While there is no denying that many migrant workers aspire to lead modern, urban lives, they still maintain a conflicted relationship with the city. The experiences of Liang Hui,²...

The recent wave of strikes at factories in southern mainland China was triggered by one bold worker who decided to stick his neck out.

Early on the morning of May 17, Tan Guocheng, a twenty-four-year-old worker in the gearbox department at the Honda Auto Parts factory in Foshan, Guangdong, pressed an emergency button that shut down the production line. It was a symbolic strike signal that not only awakened his 1,900 underpaid coworkers but also millions of workers in the Pearl River Delta.

“We had waited for a leader to give us such a signal for a long time,” a...

Hukou(the household registration system) was developed in its current form during the 1950s to serve as a key tool of demographic control under the command economy. Its present rules were codified in 1958 under the Household Registration Regulation.¹Hukouwas used to classify workers into large categories of “rural” and “urban,” to allot corresponding socialist entitlements, to regulate the movement of people from villages to urban areas, and to maintain planned control of industrial enterprises in urbandanwei(work units). Under thehukousystem, agricultural households (nongye hukou) shared in the collective ownership of rural agricultural land. Urban, “nonagricultural...

In the last three decades of reform, the Pearl River Delta in South China has benefitted from massive inflows of foreign investment, particularly overseas/ethnic Chinese investment from Hong Kong and Taiwan. Hong Kong and Taiwanese investments have generally been treated without much differentiation because both have involved cross-border transplantation of labor-intensive and export-oriented manufacturing to the PRD since the 1980s. However, taking Dongguan, the famous workshop of the world factory as a case, divergent transformations have been found between the two forms of investment since the 1990s, especially after China’s accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001. Industrialization in...

The “iron rice bowl” (tiefanwan) was once the symbol for the lifelong employment and welfare given through many state-run enterprises during Maoist-era socialism in China (as well as Taiwan’s clientelist, developmental state era). These benefits were channeled and managed through state-controlleddanwei(commonly translated as “work unit”), which provided everything from housing to health care and schooling within its compounds [see “The Danwei” in this volume]. The colloquial term “rice bowl” means a job and livelihood. Thus, to fire someone is to “break his/her rice bowl” (dapo tade fanwan).

The iron rice bowl became brittle during the reform period under...

Prior to and during the early period of the Industrial Revolution, entrepreneurs provided poor families with raw materials for spinning, weaving, and garment making in their own homes. The above early nineteenth-century print shows an English family sewing uniforms for the British army. In a domestic environment preceding modern factories, family members gathered around the window, seizing the daylight as an opportunity for work. Male relatives were responsible for the transportation of heavy materials and products, while female members assembled parts. As such, the physical power of human bodies and the availability of daylight determined productivity. Spatial and location requirements...

Recently, I met a young American architect and novice developer who was working on his first project in Guangzhou. Our conversation quickly focused on the latest government planning policies for the PRD, the function of design, and the role of urban designers and architects working with developers in this region. Looking back, we were asking ourselves the following question, “Will design play a role in ‘postindustrial’ PRD?”

We spoke at length about the difference between the postindustrial nature of the PRD and that of Western cities such as Manchester in the United Kingdom. Manchester has been widely discussed as a...

The Adwin Dongguan Factory, a textile factory, is located in Hengli Town, one of the most concentrated factory towns in Dongguan. As in other factories, the company employs workers from other provinces. Therefore, the factory needs to provide accommodation and other facilities for the workers. In this factory, greenery is an important element. Trees are planted around each factory building. Generous and landscaped open spaces are incorporated into the master plan.

Labor shortage has become acute and it has been more difficult to run a factory in the Pearl River Delta. Apart from salary, the factories in the region need...

Hong Kong is located in South China. It was first incorporated into China during the Qing Dynasty (221 BC – 206 BC). The British Hong Kong period began in the nineteenth century when the British, Dutch, French, Indians and Americans saw China as the world’s largest untapped market. The British empire launched their first and one of the most aggressive expedition to claim the territory under Queen Victoria in 1840, three years after she became queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The territory that would later be known as Hong Kong was gained from the last...

Shenzhen, located in southern China, is a district city of the Guangdong Province. The city is bordered by Hong Kong to the south, Dongguan to the north and Huizhou to the northeast. Being the neighboring city to Hong Kong, Shenzhen economically benefits from its close ties with Hong Kong’s well-established economy.

Historically, Shenzhen was a small fishing village; this however changed at the end of the 1970s when Mao Zedong decided to designate Shenzhen as the first, and now largely considered the most successful, Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in China. The city’s population today is roughly 14 million people, of...

Dongguan city is situated at 23’02” north latitude and 113’45” east longitude. It is located in the northeast part of the PRD with the Pearl River to the west, and also borders the cities of Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Huizhou.

In terms of administration, Dongguan is a prefecture-level city in Guangdong Province, governing 28 towns and central districts. It is one of only three prefecture-level cities in China without county level. This special administrative system provides every town in Dongguan an equal opportunity to develop.

After China adopted its “Open Door” policy, Dongguan began its fast economic development. Today Dongguan is...

Previously known in English and other European languages as Canton, Guangzhou is the principal city of the Guangdong Province of southern China. The city is located north of the Pearl River and about 120 km northwest of Hong Kong.

At the 2000 census, the city had an official population of 6 million, but a consolidated urban population of roughly 12 million, making it the most populous city in the province and the third most populous metropolitan area in China.

Guangzhou is the main manufacturing hub of the Pearl River Delta, and a key transportation hub and trading port, with access...

The town of Foshan is many centuries old and is famous for its porcelain industries. It is the third largest city in Guangdong and has become relatively affluent compared to other Chinese cities; it is now the home of many large private enterprises. Foshan is also famous for its numerous martial arts “Wing Chun” schools which attract many people into the town to train and spar. Foshan has recently seen transformations triggered by China’s booming economy.

In January 2009 the National People’s Congress approved a development plan for the Pearl River Delta Region. On March 19, 2009, the Guangzhou Municipal...

The city was originally a county renamed in honor of Dr Sun Zhongshan, more widely known as Sun Yat-sen and is considered by many to be the “Father of modern China.” Dr. Sun was born in Cuiheng Village (now part of Nanlang Town) located just outside of downtown Zhongshan.

Zhongshan is a city famous for the numerous leafy parks, wide boulevards and various monuments. A notable sight include: Sunwen Road West in Zhongshan Old Town — a pedestrian mall lined with dozens of restored buildings from the colonial period in treaty port style. Several of these buildings were built during...