# Shenzhen's accidental landlords — Paths

> China declared Shenzhen its first special economic zone in 1980. About 300,000 original villagers whose ancestral land sat inside that line now command a combined fortune of more than $30 billion, roughly one-fifth of a city of 17 million.

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Structural luck 1980–2021 Place

# Shenzhen's accidental landlords

Fishing villagers whose land sat inside a 1980 special economic zone.

**$30bn+** combined fortune of original villagers

## What they did

The villagers of Huanggang and Futian had farmed and fished for centuries. Before the 1980s, many swam for British Hong Kong. Those who remained stayed because they did not leave, not because they expected a boom.

## What they did not choose

The state redrew the map around their farmland. Foreign investment arrived. The fishing village became a city of 17 million. Clan elders put holdings into nearly a thousand village corporations. Business Day later called their heirs this city's equivalent of Manhattan trust-fund babies. Relatives who swam the other way lived different lives on the other side of a border that did not yet exist.

## Figures

- Shenzhen special economic zone declared in 1980.

- Original villagers: about 300,000 people, combined fortune above $30 billion (Business Day, 2021).

- Those families own roughly one-fifth of Shenzhen, a city of about 17 million.

## Limit

Staying in a village is not a forecast of a $30 billion fortune. The same families, a few miles away, did not receive the line. Geography here is an unchosen condition, not a method for picking land.

## Sources

- [Business Day — From rags to riches in Shenzhen](https://www.businessday.co.za/bd/world/asia/2021-10-19-from-rags-to-riches-in-shenzhen-chinas-silicon-valley/)

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