“Scores of neighbourhoods, once criss-crossed with colonial-era residences housing tens of thousands of people, were laid to waste in the 1990s and the early part of this century in Shanghai. Swathes of the city were left resembling Berlin after the Allied blitz. The frenzied reconstruction which followed was one of the largest building booms in recorded history. About 20 million square metres of land were developed in the city between 2000 and 2005 alone, equal to one-third the size of Manhattan.”
“What about Pudong’s three hundred thousand displaced farmers? Under the Sunshine Relocation Policy they were methodically and incrementally moved to previously prepared accommodations and received some cash compensation based on the acreage they lost. [...] Many young farmers took on miscellaneous jobs. Many of them became local officials, entrepreneurs, or salaried workers in nearby factories. Observers pointed out that most displaced farmers were better off, even if they became janitors in the offices built on what had been their land”
Quotes from Richard McGregor's The Party: The Secret World of China's Communist Rulers
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