restrictions could loosen. In 2014, the North Korean
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government discussed expanding the complex and VERTICAL URBAN FACTORY THE CONTEMPORARY FACTORY INDUSTRIAL URBANISM
opening it up to non-Korean-based firms; but in doing so, they could run up against political negotiations around nuclear issues and, more significantly, sanctions around military and human rights violations. Hong Kong
In the ebb and flow of industrial development, China is still attracting the most attention from the perspective of urban growth; it has exploded in its coordinated “path to progress” and its dominance in the export market. With that progress comes a well-documented exploitation of people and degradation of the environment. Long before the factories of Shenzhen were built and evolved the production city it is today, Northeastern China followed the Soviet and Japanese example in providing a home to larger manufacturers of railroads, steel smelting, and mining, which employed about two million people in the 1920s. In the 1950s, the Northeast region of Dongbei (Manchuria) — a massive state-financed industrial zone created by moving industries inland — employed thousands of workers, producing 16 percent of the industrial growth of China. In this district, workers were housed in “model worker villages,” and were provided with a state education as well as medical care in what was called the “iron rice bowl” system.81 During the Communist Revolution, many workers were reassigned to live in compounds, or danwei. These enclaves, while not hospitable on all counts because inland of the border, where the companies could take advantage of cheaper North
of the controlling mechanisms, included small factories, offices, classrooms, and
Korean laborers and thus compete with China. An industrial enclave consisting of
dwellings in multistoried blocks functioning as living collectives surrounded by
more than 125 factories employs over 50,000 workers, most of whom are women.
brick walls. This spatial organization was repeated across China from the 1950s
They are paid a salary of only $110 per month — of which they receive only 55
to the mid-1990s.82 The government program’s standardized building units could
percent and the remainder is given to the government — but they produce $470
be compared to aspirations of Western nineteenth-century factory towns. Some
million worth of goods. The factories in the DMZ are built as concrete multistoried
believe the formation of the danwei, because of their combined dormitory and
buildings in gated clusters within a gridded street layout.
workspace situation, when considered in regards to the typology of Chinese factory
Constant controversy as to whether or not the South should continue to produce in the North has increased pressure on politicians and increased wages. The
settlements, to be the foundation for the industrial district in China today.83 Emigrants from mainland China and Southeast Asia in the 1950s gravitated
W Gated entrance to Kaesong Industrial District, North
Kaesong Industrial Complex in particular is seen as a potential negotiating point at
towards cities, where they eventually provided the cheap labor for factories pro-
the volatile border. Production has been halted several times in the last few years,
ducing textiles, shoes, plastics, toys, and electronics. A subject of urban fascination,
including in 2010 after the sinking of a South Korean ship, and in 2013 because of
low-income residential complexes in the super-dense, multistoried Kowloon Walled
Y Workers in a textile factory,
the controversies around nuclear testing in North Korea. In 2013, South Korean
City, a former fort in Hong Kong, housed as many as 50,000 people. Immigrants in
Hong Kong, early 1970s
managers and company trucks with raw materials and food were blocked from
Hong Kong fueled small cottage industries and developed their own food produc-
Y The former walled city of
entry at the gated complex, and 53,000 workers were not allowed to work in the
tion chain through informal enterprising economies, made possible by the extreme
factories for five months.80
urban density. For example, women lucky enough to have a sewing machine might
Goods made in Kaesong are banned from import to the U.S. because of the political divide, although if other countries start to manufacture products there,
work as subcontractors to a shoe factory, sewing the tops of canvas sneakers or other parts.
Korea, 2011. Photograph by Eric Lafforgue
Kowloon, Hong Kong, prior to its demolition in 1993. Photograph by Greg Girard