Raped, Pillaged, and Abandoned

Many old-style neighborhoods are being torn down to make way for lucrative office space, wider roads, new subway lines, General Modernisation. People living in these neighborhoods are told that their country needs them to relocate. That's not to say the policy doesn't meet with some disgruntled expressions for displacing families from homes that had been in their hands for generations, for forcing people into new apartment buildings on the outskirts of the city, for separating neighbors that had been a part of each others' family histories and daily lives. For those displaced, being relocated can be a horribly emotional time.


In the past, the government assigned new housing and often neighbors would find themselves in the same apartment complex. Though it wasn't communal living as they were accustomed to (sharing sinks, toilets, outdoor space, etc), at least they had indoor plumbing and sturdy walls. Today's policy is to trade cash for old housing instead of a new apartment. This presents another set of complications; while on the surface people have the freedom to choose where they will live (if not whether they relocate), isn't it still up to the government to provide housing affordable to these people? Thereby still in the hands of the government to decide where this affordable housing will be built? Maybe private developers will build "low-income housing" (as they say in New York), but still...how will people organise to relocate to the same apartment complex and preserve their personal relationships?


Last month I wandered into one of these neighborhoods in the process of being demolished. Bared and raw, the structures were quiet but still beautiful in a vulnerable way. The saddest image was seeing the very few families still occupying the area, abandoned rubble greeting them each morning.

> February 2007. East end of Fuxing Lu, Shanghai.



acknowledgements
> Thank you Libby from M97 Gallery, one of Shanghai's first dedicated international contemporary photography galleries, for sharing a sense of curiosity and exploring the site together.

cited sources
> Though the practice of displacing people is common knowledge, some details come from a conversation with my ayi's brother-in-law, who was unhappily moved from his childhood home centrally located on Nanjingxi Road. My ayi Jane's husband was also displaced, but his home was in the shadows of a municipal prison and barely livable. Being relocated greatly improved his quality of life.