Final Hours
A Shanghai home on the eve of its destruction. As real estate values soar and land becomes a red-hot commodity, everyone from wealthy developers to government officials is grabbing property. But a rising number of middle-class homeowners are fighting back.
Squatting
An elderly man sits in what is left of his home in one of the many condemned areas of Shanghai, 2004. Some activists think the land protests will climax at this summer's Olympics in Beijing. There, the city government had made plans to tear down some 60,000 houses a year, evicting 1.5 million people, in part to build Olympic sports facilities, luxury shopping complexes, entertainment districts, and residential areas.
Scene From a Revolution
A razed area of Shanghai, 2004. Very few of the evictions in China would qualify as legal in other countries, and even in China the legality is murky.
Fight for Rights
A man sits where old homes once stood in front of the Jin Mao Tower in Shanghai, 2005. Because the state technically owns all urban land and the average Chinese citizen simply owns the right to live on the land for a time, government officials have massive leverage on homeowners and can force them to leave their property without paying much—if anything—in compensation.
Sun's Strategy
Sun Ruoyu perches on a bulldozer poised to demolish her home and family business to make room for the Beijing 2008 Olympic marathon route, 2007. The government offered the family members compensation, but they refused to leave, claiming the money promised was far less than the market value of the property.
