Assignment for L'Espresso magazine. How is changing the financial scenery in Hong Kong.

China became an urban society in 2011, when for the first time the number of city dwellers exceeded the rural population, indeed, the 51% of the Chinese population live in cities, as in 1979, at Deng Xiaoping's time, it was 19%. A report from the McKinsey Global Institute projected that between 2009 and 2025, 350 million people would move from China’s rural parts to its eastern cities. The migrations are expected and driven towards the city of second and third size. These new cities, which are often zoned as new districts of existing municipalities, are built up from scratch, topped off with public works infrastructure, schools, government buildings, stores, malls, massive amounts of housing, universities, and sometimes even stadiums all before a single resident moves in. The benefits of this urban development strategy are that an entire city can be built on a single, fully integrated plan, but the risks are absolute: if the project fails, an entire city goes under. Nowadays the Kangbashi district, built on the north bank of the Wulan Mulun River, planned to accommodate a population over of one million, is home to a lonely 10,000 people – leaving more than 98% of this 355-square kilometer site either under construction or abandoned altogether. Housing prices have fallen from $1,100 to $470 per square foot, over the last five years.

Chungking Mansions building, located at 36-44 Nathan Road in Tsim Sha Tsui, is supposedly residential, it is made up of a labyrinth of hundreds low cost guesthouses, curry restaurants, African bistros, clothing shops, sari stores, and foreign exchange offices. It often acts as a large gathering place for some of the ethnic minorities in Hong Kong, particularly South Asians (Indians, Nepalese, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Sri Lankans), Middle Eastern people, Nigerians, Europeans, Americans, and many other peoples of the world. Chungking Mansions is 17 stories tall and consists of five blocks, A, B, C, D and E. There are two lifts in each block, one of which serves even-numbered floors, the other one odd-numbered floors. A CCTV camera system exists at the ground floor level for each of the lift cars. The first two floors are however common space where you can wander around under the blocks , the third floor is actually a terrace level between the blocks where the tower blocks rise out of the base of the building and all floors above this are accessible only by the stairways and lifts contained in each block. It is also known to be a centre of drugs, and a refuge for petty criminals, scammers, and illegal immigrants. 208 CCTVs were installed throughout the building in 2004 and under the central control of a security company. It also hires security guards and cleaning workers to patrol in the building day to night and ensure the cleanliness of the building respectively. From time to time, police officers and the immigration officers check the identity of the people inside this building in order to crackdown on drug-trafficking, overstaying and other criminal offences. With all these effort the security and environment in Chungking Mansions has been improving significantly.

The ancient Silk Road trading hub of Kashgar, in China's northwest Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, is being threatened by a government redevelopment plan that some say has a hidden political agenda. Kashgar's old city has survived the centuries, and remains an important Islamic cultural center for the Uyghurs, the Turkic ethnic group living in Xinjiang. Two-thirds of Kashgar's Old City will be bulldozed in the next few weeks under a government plan to "modernize" the area. According to the nongovernmental Beijing Cultural Protection Center, the densely packed houses and narrow lanes of old Kashgar are the best-preserved examples of a traditional Islamic city in all of China and "From a cultural and historical perspective, this plan of theirs is stupid," said Wu Lili, the managing director of the BCPC, "From the perspective of the locals, it's cruel." City officials have been moving a number of families out of Kashgar's city center, saying they need to rebuild old, dangerous houses and improve infrastructure. In total, the government says it plans to renovate or reconstruct more than 5 million square meters of old homes and resettle some 45,000 households. Some Uighurs argue the demolition is part of an orchestrated campaign by the Chinese government to destroy Uighur culture. "The Kashgar project appears to be a tool to assimilate Uyghurs and to actually stifle peaceful dissent by putting old city residents from an organic living arrangement into a regimented, government-organized living arrangement. The Chinese authorities are able to monitor the activity of any peaceful dissent among Uyghurs," they say. There are also concerns about how people will earn a living once they are moved far from the centre of tourism - the government plan apparently does not include any mention of job creation. Disappearing the old city, tourism will disappear.

The fast developments of the city leave temporary traces that as well fast disappear to make room to new skyscrapers..The typical Shanghai home, the "shikumen", build by French at the beginning of the last century are razing because the value land..In Anfu Lu, area that just join the status of ?center city?, 1200 families are send away to make room for a skyscraper. Around seventy families do not want give up despite the skyscraper company offer them as money as 12 years average gain of a Chinese employers: 120.000.00 Yuan. A woman still living there, 75-years-old, bought the right to live there for 1 (one) Yuan (10 cents of ?) in the 50's and less than 50 Yuan for year. She say the money are not enough to buy a home in the same area and she do not want go far away....

Li Xue simply doesn't exist. Apart a birth certificate, that proving she's the child born in August 1993, for Chinese registry office, she doesn't exist. She is an "heihaizi" (black child) condemned to a lifetime in the dark because of the one-child policy: as the second child, the Beijing-born Xue doesn't have the "hukou", resident registration certificate required by law. According government statistics, 13 million people in China are without "hukou". It's a consequences of the one-child policy: forced sterilization and mandated abortions, sure, but also millions like Li Xue, victims who live in the shadow. Some change has been made in the policy in decades. Previously, if both parents were from one-child families, they might be allowed a second child, but only if the first was female or disabled. Now, if either parent is an only child, they might be eligible to have two. Both Xue's parents, Li Hongyu and Bai Xiuling, are handicapped, and thought they were exempt from the policy. When Xue's mother gave birth to her, eight years after their first daughter Li Bin, Bai was fired by the factory she worked for. Li's family was fined 5,000 RMB by the commission, but the Li family's monthly income was 100 RMB. According to the law, as black resident, she has no rights at all, she couldn't go to school, find a job, and get married. Li Xue has to borrow from her sister Li Bin's medical insurance card if she wants to go to the hospital, and even her sister's library card to borrow books. Her sister taught her to read and write. Li Xue has read many books of law, she's passionate about the law and she'd like to study and graduate in law. Throughout the duration of the Olympic Games in 2008, as told by the family Li, Xue was kept tied up in the house. Since then, to every sensitive event as the Congress of the Comunist Party, at least a dozen police officers stationed in front of the house and prevent the whole family to get out. A few months ago she presented a lawsuit with the Beijing court because, he says, it is true that my parents should have to pay a fine, but it isn't written anywhere that I shouldn't have the "hukou". Now she is waiting for the response of the Beijing court. If it doesn't work this , she have three other levels judgement to hope in a permit residence. She don't want give up, to come finally out of the shadows.

Hong Kong - referred to officially as the "Hong Kong Special Administrative Region" by the Chinese government - was under British administration from 1842 until a transfer of sovereignty to the People's Republic of China in 1997. Today, the region operates with a great degree of autonomy under the Sino-British Joint Declaration, which provides for semi-autonomous status until at least 2047. Hong Kong's sovereignty is protected by the declaration except in areas regarding national defense and foreign relations, which are overseen by China's national government in Beijing. The region's status as China's wealthiest urban center is owed in large part to the nature of its highly capitalist economy, which boasts free markets, low taxation and government non-intervention. An important center for international finance and trade, Hong Kong - which lacks natural resources and has little arable land - operates via an economy dominated by services, which accounts for over 90 percent of the region's gross domestic product.

A journey in the remote Chinese province of Xinjiang, a Uygur people majority and Muslim religion, who suffer by years the helped or forced colonizing by dominant and governing Han ethno. Bordering with seven Muslim countries, Xinjiang is the Chinese wedge in the deep Asia. Essential geopolitically, the Xinjiang hide oil deposits which nobody knows exactly how really vast are. Descending from Genghis Khan, Turkmen origin, the Uygur in the early 90ís tried a low revolt against the discrimination of the central Han power government. The autonomy dream was immediately stamp out. Although there are very few trace of the autonomy dreams, the central power hand do not give up at all. Recent Afghan matters helped the government to justify their pression on this people for their religious faith. The few places of Uygur pride are the mosque and the shrine tomb of a holy man who lived in the 14th century. Anyway for those who works for the government ìitís betterî if do not use to go to the mosque. The Uygurs now are just waiting for the bright development that it seems has hit China; they hope it could be help them as well. The cities are changing deeply, in a landscape were you could find a classic Istanbul tea house, and it could not be so strange, it is going easy to find the anonymous huge classic Chinese block of flats. These two screenplays live together in a harsh contrast, indifferent each other, as Uygur and Han people at last.

The park "Splendid China" spreads almost 300,000 square meter of land. Its miniature scenic area is a replica of China, reflecting long-standing history and ancient architecture, as well as the customs and habits of 56 nationalities in China.

The park "Windows of the World" contains examples of famous attractions from all over the world. With an area of 480,000 square meters, the park contains different sections covering Asia, the Pacific, Europe, Africa, and America. Sights and sites of historical interest in the world, ancient and modern, natural landscapes and cultural sites are here.

MAD is a Beijing-based architectural design studio dedicated to creating innovative projects. It combines a sophisticated design philosophy with advanced technology in exploring contemporary architecture, social, and cultural issue in today's China. We examine and develop our unique concept of futurism through current theoretical practices in architectural design, landscape design, and urban planning. MAD's ongoing projects include, among the others, the Absolute Tower in Toronto, Canada, an international competition won by MAD in 2006; Or MAD's conceptual proposal: "Super Star_A mobile China Town" is on exhibition in the Uneternal City section of the 11th Architecture Biennale in Venice.

The Three Gorges Dam resettlement involves the building of new cities and towns and the movement of large numbers of peasants, usually relocate near the original location otherwise to the 11 provinces throughout Eastern China. .Jiang Zemin's speech (Nov 8, 1997) said: "A successful resettlement of the people affected by the Three Gorges Project is the key to the progress and eventual success of the project.î.By building the world's largest dam across the world's third-longest river, China will force, at the end of the process, 1.2 million (somebody says 2 million) people to move from fertile farmlands along the Yangtze and will affect the lives of roughly 400 million people who live along its banks before 2008, when the water in the reservoir will rise to 175 meters.

The 42,000-tonne, 275-metre-long Minsk carrier once carried 42 fighter planes as the flagship of the former Soviet Union's Pacific Fleet. After the Soviet Union dissolved, Russia was unable to manage the upkeep, and the carrier was decommissioned in 1994. In 1998, it was purchased by an unidentified Chinese businessman after its weaponry was stripped off in South Korea. It then passed to the theme park's owner, D'Long Group, which is based in the northwest Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, was set up by brothers Tang Wanxin and Tang Wanli. The Minsk Carrier based on the modern high tech, makes full use of the sound, light and electricity for exciting and colorful military amusements, meanwhile, there are also kinds of exhibits include a Russian dance group performs folk dances. On the top deck, large as three football fields put together, guides dressed in mock-military uniforms inform visitors about the two armed helicopters and the Mig-23 fighter planes. Underneath the top deck there's a missile storehouse, dining rooms, originally for the officers and the rank-and-file soldiers, have been fashioned into restaurants.

The first boutique hotel by Swire Hotels, the property, opened its doors in time to welcome swarms of Olympic revelers and the first shoppers at the Village at Sanlitun, the neighboring open-plan leisure, shopping and cultural community. Swire Properties acquired the site for The Village at Sanlitun, a shopping and entertainment destination, with plans for a boutique hotel within it. In Chinese culture, the phrase "opposite house" refers to the guesthouse which is customarily located on the other side of a traditional courtyard home. The hotel group chose award-winning Kengo Kuma and Associates to bring the vision to life with the exterior and interior design.

Beijing, the host of the 2008 Olympics, has spent some 12 million US dollars a year to renovate its 6.000-odd public toilets and to bring them up to modern standards. Beijing, with 5,174 public toilets, has outpaced New York, London and Tokyo and become the world's No. 1 metropolis as far as public toilets are concerned.