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From฀Alley฀Houses฀to฀High-rises:฀ What฀Happened฀to฀the฀Lived฀Space?฀ 1 o illuminate ho w th e live d spac e o f ordinary people' s everyda y lif e i s undermined t o serve the expanding space of global flows, I will concentrate on th e fou r mos t profound impact s on th e inhabitants tha t resulte d fro m Shanghai's global city formation. Above all, to reshape Shanghai into the city of the twenty-first century , migrant workers' claims to the urban space are repressed, numerou s loca l residents relocated, th e function o f work-units diminished, and thousands of workers in traditional industries laid off . While th e divid e betwee n th e servic e clas s an d th e majorit y o f th e Shanghainese is masked by naturalizing the transnational business people's claims to new urban space as part of the collective desire to see Shanghai rise as a city o f th e future , th e problem s o f th e othe r en d o f th e duality , th e downtrodden laborers , are simply rendered as nonexistent. If the successfu l people (jjSc^Aifc ) serv e a s localized reflectio n an d refractio n o f th e international servic e class , in Shanghai, what correspond s t o th e foreig n laborers as seen in global cities like New York, London, or Hong Kong, is the large number o f migrant workers from inlan d provinces. There has been a long history of Shanghai attracting migrant workers, and the city's recent ongoing urban constructio n ha s accounted fo r another major influx . I n 1993 alone, Shanghai mobilize d mor e tha n 1 million constructio n worker s t o complete 1 8 key urban constructio n project s (Lia o 20). Evidently, most of them are migrant workers, but specifically how many does not seem to be a major concern of the report. One report from the Economist estimates that on average about 2 million migrant laborers were looking for jobs in Shanghai every da y i n 199 5 ("Cit y o f th e Plain " 18) . Anothe r stud y o n urba n transportation i n Shanghai, published i n 1997 , shows tha t th e "floatin g 7฀ 112฀Mirror ,฀Mirror,฀On฀the฀Wall฀ population," predominantly rural migrants, is believed to come to 3 million and the number is still growing (Shen 591-2) Yet , the increasing number of the migrant laborers guarantees neither any representation nor any rights I n fact, in the literature on Pudong's or Shanghai's development into a global city, the issue of migrant workers has not been addressed adequatel y Fo r instance, in the comparative chart of world-cities and Pudong, no figures of foreign laborers versus migrant workers can be found Whe n billions of dollars funded by bankers is flowing in, one fifth of the whole world's building cranes are m action, block after block of high-rises are mushrooming at every corner, the question of how many migrant workers are involved with the grand project of building a global city does not seem to matter Wha t are the counterparts of the fancy office, luxur y apartment and verdant golf course of the service class7 The slices of the migrant workers' lives m Shanghai — their workplaces, accommodations, and leisure spaces, if any — largely remain unknown Whe n urban developers are preoccupied with updating the images of transnational corporations in Shanghai, the amount of foreign direct investment, the height of a new monumental building, or even the number of building cranes, those who are physically carrying out the material construction are excluded fro m the calculated mapping of the global city The migrant laborers' claims to the urban space can easily be ignored, since they are non-registered rural people, legally never belonging to Shanghai, due to China's migration policy1 Thu s they can barely qualify a s justifiable users o f th e city , despit e th e fac t tha t th e physica l constructio n o f th e shimmering global city relies on their hard labor I n contrast to the image of the successful people, migrant workers are often conflate d with such names as "floating population" o r "blind drifters," (TtfSl ) th e latter with a strong derogatory...

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