This summer, the central dance floor of New York's Lincoln Center came alive as thousands of audience members moved to the rhythm of Da Zhan Hong Tu (Blueprint Supreme). The song's performer, young rapper Chen Xukai, also known by his stage names Lan Lao and SKAI ISYOURGOD, is from China's Guangdong Province, and had more than 3 million listeners this July on Spotify, the global streaming giant.

The scenes depicted in the lyrics—"congee stalls by the Dongjiang River," "drinking herbal tea"—are vivid snapshots of life in Guangzhou's urban villages, known as chengzhongcun in Chinese.

The dense, often informal settlements within China's rapidly developing metropolitan areas generate endless discussions. Rather than disappearing through urbanization, some of these communities in Guangzhou expanded alongside the city's growth.

According to Guangzhou's Urban Village Redevelopment Plan (2021-35), the city now contains 272 such settlements across all 11 districts. They are not merely historical relics of urban development but crucial testing grounds for exploring modern governance in a megacity.

The transformation

At six in the evening, the aroma of barbecue wafted through the lanes of Lirendong Village in Panyu District, Guangzhou. He Jiamin, a 27-year-old e-commerce operator just off work, descended the stairs carrying three empty cardboard delivery boxes for recycling. Granny Chen, her hair streaked with grey, greeted him with a smile as she accepted them with a "thank you" in Cantonese.

"Three years ago, when I arrived in Guangzhou with my luggage, I thought an urban village was just a temporary stopgap," He reflected, sitting on a bench in the new residential complex built for the original residents through an urban renewal project, with newly delivered modern apartment buildings behind him and a brightly lit digital economy industrial park in the distance. The rent for his single room hasn't increased much, but the complex now comes with elevators, charging stations and 24-hour security. "Now that the street stalls downstairs are regulated, I don't have to worry about food safety any more and my landlady still invites me to her home for sweet soup."

Lirendong Village, located in the core area of Guangzhou's southern central business district, was once renowned as China's No.1 Taobao Village due to its thriving e-commerce industry. However, as the city's development ambitions grew, its outdated spatial layout and industrial infrastructure could no longer meet the demands of high-quality development.

In 2019, the Guangzhou Municipal Government, partnering with state-owned developer Yuexiu Property, initiated a regeneration project with a total investment exceeding 50 billion yuan ($7 billion), making it the largest urban village renovation project in the city.

This October, as a typical example of urban village regeneration in Chinese megacities, the Lirendong project reached a major milestone—1,677 households formally moved into the first batch of new housing, leaving behind the cramped handshake buildings (so named because they are so close neighbors could literally shake hands from adjacent windows) and poorly lit alleyways.

The regeneration

"I had waited 15 years to finally take my granddaughter for walks in my new neighborhood," Xian Yan (pseudonym) told Guangzhou Daily, standing on the balcony of her new apartment, capturing the moment the last two village houses in Xiancun Village of Guangzhou were demolished.

As the last remaining urban village in the prestigious Zhujiang New Town area, Xiancun Village was once considered the toughest nut to crack in China's urban regeneration efforts: 1,421 households, 1,950 structures, entangled with complex issues like property disputes and illegal construction.

A turning point came in May 2024 with the implementation of the regulations on the renovation of urban villages in Guangzhou. As the first specialized local regulation of its kind in China, it provided the key to breaking the deadlock in Xiancun Village through lawful procedures.

While located close to her former handshake building, Xiancun's new home is a world apart, featuring natural gas supply, smart home systems and a soon-to-be-completed kindergarten downstairs.

The preservation

If large-scale, wholesale redevelopment addresses the hardware issues of urban villages, then meticulously crafted micro-regeneration protects the city's software—its memory. Not far from Xiancun Village, in Liwan District's Yongqing Fang, an experiment in urban renewal focused on cultural preservation is quietly underway.

Underfoot are clean, granite block pavements, surrounded by bustling tourists and flanked by intangible cultural heritage workshops and trendy boutiques; above, laundry aired from the windows of original residents. This unique coexistence of tradition and modernity is made possible by Guangzhou's micro-regeneration model.

The regeneration project meticulously preserved all 79 architectural heritage sites and six intangible cultural heritage items within the original street network. Through this careful approach, the traditional streetscape of 1.2 km of Qilou—a distinctive

arcaded building style characteristic of Guangdong—was completely restored. This allowed the neighborhood to retain its authentic historical flavor while achieving contemporary revitalization.

Empowered by this subtle urban renewal and cultural infusion, Yongqing Fang received over 20 million visitors last year. The number of businesses increased from 36 in 2016 to more than 130, with 2024 street revenue exceeding 200 million yuan ($28 million), a year-on-year increase of over 30 percent. These figures demonstrate that cultural preservation and commercial development can be mutually reinforcing.

"A city should not merely be an object of public view, but a living space for the individuals who inhabit it," Zhou Zhanfeng, Director of the European Market Division of the Inbound Department at China International Travel Service, told Beijing Review.

Every year, newly graduated young people, carrying backpacks and rolling suitcases, enter these urban villages, their hearts a mix of anxiety and hope. Here, they find affordable housing and begin their stories of integrating into the city.

Nightlife in the urban villages begins with dinner. Barbecue stalls from all over China gather near subway entrances. These vendors used to play a familiar cat-and-mouse game with city management authorities, to dodge regulation. Now, management is more standardized, with designated streets for night vending, while vendors are required to pay monthly stall fees and display health certificates and food safety licenses prominently.

After dinner, young people are often seen walking their dogs, or taking their cats to fetch delivery packages. This is also the time they might run into their landladies dancing in the square. If they see their own landlord, they'll often exchange a polite greeting.

These daily rhythms of urban village life directly inspire Lan Lao's music. He blends Memphis hip-hop with Cantonese cultural sensibilities, creating a "Lan-style Memphis" sound that bridges local dialect and modern rap. His self-deprecating lyrics—A Mercedes-Benz building opposite, I park my Yadea e-scooter to the side—capture the inclusive spirit of Guangzhou's urban renewal.

"Guangzhou's regeneration has not dampened the vibrant energy of its urban villages; instead, it has elevated this coexistence between refinement and vulgarity into a prominent feature. This is precisely its core appeal to the world," remarked Lin Zheng, an associate professor of Chinese at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, in a post on Douyin and Its Friends—a popular cultural channel on the Douyin (TikTok) platform.

This vision of vibrant street life coexisting with modern convenience is unfolding across Guangzhou's 272 urban villages. Once synonymous with densely packed handshake buildings and weak infrastructure, these villages have also been crucial springboards for millions of newcomers. The transnational e-commerce giant Shein started here, the music of one of China's most popular rock bands Wutiaoren was born here, and countless young people launched their dreams from these streets.

According to the 2025 Government Work Report, China is continuously advancing urban renewal including the renovation of old residential communities. In 2024, urban village regeneration expanded to over 300 cities, with approximately 60,000 urban renewal projects implemented and completed investment reaching about 2.9 trillion yuan ($0.4 trillion). Within this vast context, Guangzhou's exploration is particularly valuable.

"We started with thorough communication with villagers from the design phase, letting them clearly see the blueprint for their future," Ding Li, Chief Economist at the Guangzhou Municipal Housing and Urban-Rural Development Bureau, said. This people-oriented philosophy ensures that urban renewal is not merely a physical transformation but also a reshaping of social relations.

Today, the resettlement apartments of Xiancun Village form a seamless skyline with the skyscrapers of Zhujiang New Town, while the grey bricks and black tiles of Yongqing Fang echo the sci-tech innovation towers nearby. In these spaces where old and new intertwine, different lifestyles are fully respected, and tradition and modernity achieve harmonious coexistence. BR 

Copyedited by G.P. Wilson 

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