Shenzhen is currently upgrading its industry; this results in empty factory buildings and huge demographic changes within the migrant population. It also implies a transition from a blue-collar to a white-collar society. Shenzhen’s economic success is based on cheap labor. Nonetheless, blue-collar migrants are considered to be both problematic and vulnerable. But do we really understand and appreciate the economic and social value of the current generation of migrants in Shenzhen? ‘Da Lang Fever’ is a story about the potential of a self-organizing migrant society in the neighborhood Da Lang. It showcases the empowering nature of bottom-up activities for migrant workers.
Belgrade became famous in architectural circles in the 1990s for its ‘wildness’; its seemingly spontaneous and unruled spatial practices that at first glance appeared to be a product of a complete ignorance of existing laws. A longer gaze uncovers that the legal-illegal dichotomy in Belgrade was not so simple, and that, behind an exuberant form, the processes that made Belgrade seem wild, have much more to do with the re-regulation of laws, than with their disappearance.