TRANSFORMATION OF “URBAN VILLAGE” AND FEASIBLE MODE

This paper analyzes the surface mean- ing and the essence of urban village. It finds that ur- ban villages have evolved into low-income communi- ties of migrant population by providing housings with very low rent, and the methods of transformation only focusing on villagers’ benefits proved wrong. In comparison with the slums in Southeast Asia and South American, urban villages are socio-economic systems with order, self-organization similar with the “work units” in Socialist China. So the mode of deal- ing with slums could not be used for urban villages. It argues that the purpose of urban village transforma- tion dominated by city government is not to take advantage of location of the village but to provide more comfortable housing for migrant population with low income. It is concluded that the mode of self- transformation guided by the government would be feasible.