纽约时报中文网 - 中英对照版-中英中国多地推进城中村改造希望借此提振楼市刺激经济

In Shenzhen, a metropolis born of China’s economic prosperity, Paibang Village is a reminder of the city’s modest past and the challenges ahead for reviving the country’s property sector.

在深圳这个中国经济繁荣造就出的大都市，排榜村令人们想起这座城市朴实的过去，以及振兴中国房地产行业所面临的挑战。

Paibang is what China calls an urban village, a labyrinth of low-slung apartment buildings and mom-and-pop storefronts connected by a maze of alleyways and narrow roads. There are hundreds of them in Shenzhen, a municipality of 18 million people next to Hong Kong, and thousands of such villages across China.

排榜村是中国所谓的城中村，由低矮的公寓楼和小小的夫妻店组成，被小巷和狭窄的道路连接起来，如同迷宫一般。这样的城中村在毗邻香港、有1800万人口的深圳市数以百计，在中国各地达成千上万。

Now with China mired in an unyielding property crisis, policymakers want to revamp aging urban neighborhoods like Paibang to kick-start construction and spur local economies.

如今，随着中国陷入难以平息的房地产危机，政策制定者希望改造像排榜村这样老化的城市社区，以此启动建设，刺激当地经济。

But as the halting rehabilitation of Paibang shows, it will not be a quick or easy fix.

但是，排榜村改造陷入了停滞，这表明这并非一个快速或简单的解决方案。

Seven years ago, Paibang was chosen for an “urban renewal” by city officials, and in 2019 China Evergrande, one of the country’s biggest real estate firms, took control of the project. The company paid building owners for the right to demolish apartments and start clearing land for modern high-rises. Before the work could begin, Evergrande collapsed.

七年前，排榜村被该市官员选中，进行“城市更新”，2019年，中国最大的房地产公司之一中国恒大接管了该项目。该公司向业主支付了拆迁费用，并开始清理土地，建造现代化的高层建筑。然而工程还没开始，恒大帝国就已经坍塌。

Evergrande then handed the project to Shenzhen Metro, a state-owned firm and top shareholder in China Vanke, another giant homebuilder. Now Vanke is facing its own cash concerns. Last week, Shenzhen Metro — and, by extension, the Shenzhen government — sought to calm investors by pledging to backstop Vanke.

恒大随后将该项目交给了深圳地铁置业集团有限公司，这是一家国有企业，也是另一家大型住宅建筑商万科的最大股东。如今，万科也面临现金问题。上周，深圳地铁——乃至深圳市政府——承诺为万科提供支持，试图安抚投资者。

All the while, construction in Paibang has been at a standstill. On a recent weekday, a glass-enclosed modern building that serves as the project headquarters, and still displays Evergrande signs, was largely empty.

与此同时，排榜村的建设一直处于停滞状态。在最近的一个工作日，作为项目总部的一栋玻璃幕墙现代建筑基本上空无一人，上面仍然挂着恒大的标志。

China’s biggest homebuilders are in financial turmoil, suffering a sales slowdown and restrictions on borrowing after years of excess. Last month, the average price of new homes fell by the most in more than eight years. The real estate slump is weighing on the economy. Local governments, reliant on land lease revenue, are feeling the squeeze.

中国最大的几家住宅房地产商正处于财务动荡之中，多年过度扩张之后，它们遭遇了销售放缓和借贷受限。上个月，新房平均价格出现了八年多来的最大跌幅。房地产市场的低迷正在拖累经济。依赖土地租赁收入的地方政府感受到了压力。

The government has tried cutting interest rates and loosening home-buying requirements but has not moved the needle. More drastic measures may weigh on local budgets when debt is already a problem. Financial regulators are discussing ways to support developers, but they are wary of inducing real estate firms to revert to the risky behavior that prompted the crisis.

政府尝试降低利率和放宽购房条件，但于事无补。在债务已经成为问题的情况下，更严厉的措施可能会对地方预算造成压力。金融监管机构正在讨论支持开发商的办法，但他们担心这会诱使房地产公司重拾引发危机的冒险行为。

And that’s why Chinese leaders are looking at urban villages, community-owned enclaves within larger cities. All urban land in China is owned by the state. As part of the country’s urbanization drive, the government expanded cities by absorbing bordering farmland held by villagers.

正因如此，中国领导人把目光投向城中村，即大城市中的社区拥有的飞地。中国所有的城市土地都归国家所有。作为国家城市化进程的一部分，政府通过吸收村民拥有的周边农田来扩大城市规模。

But villages were allowed to maintain collective ownership of the areas where their residents lived, creating pockets of land where the state’s reach had limits. As Chinese cities modernized into expanses of high-rises and gridded streets, the urban villages grew into chaotic, densely populated neighborhoods little touched by the gentrification surrounding them.

但是，村庄被允许保留村民居住地区的集体所有权，从而形成了国家无法触及的小块土地。随着中国城市走向现代化，高楼林立，街道网格化，城中村逐渐发展为人口密集的混乱社区，周围的士绅化几乎与它们无关。

Starting around 2009, as urban expansion started to run out of land, many local governments recognized the untapped potential of urban villages, and redeveloped neighborhoods. But it was mostly a local initiative until this year.

从2009年左右开始，随着城市扩张开始耗尽土地，许多地方政府认识到，城中村具有尚未开发的潜力，并对这些社区进行重新开发。但在今年之前，这主要是地方上的举措。

The Politburo, the Chinese Communist Party’s executive policymaking body, said in April that it would “actively and steadily advance the transformation of urban villages” in the country’s 21 largest cities. In July, China’s cabinet, the State Council, called the policy an “important measure” to “expand domestic demand,” according to Xinhua, the state news agency.

今年4月，中共的行政决策机构政治局表示，将在全国21个最大城市“积极稳步推进城中村改造”。据官方通讯社新华社报道，今年7月，中国国务院称该政策是“扩大内需”的“重要举措”。

“It really shows that the Chinese leaders are feeling this anxiety to find new channels of urban growth,” said Zhang Yue, an associate professor of political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

“这确实表明，中国领导人对寻找城市增长的新渠道感到焦虑，”伊利诺伊大学芝加哥分校政治学副教授张玥说。

In the last major real estate downturn, around 2015, Beijing spent hundreds of billions of dollars to pay residents cash to trade in dilapidated shacks in smaller cities and towns.

在2015年左右的上一次房地产大衰退中，北京耗资数千亿美元向居民支付现金，对小城镇的破旧棚屋进行拆迁。

Redeveloping urban villages is more complicated and could be just as costly.

重新开发城中村更为复杂，成本可能同样高昂。

In an October report, Nomura Securities said that the process was “challenging and expensive,” and that the pace would be slow. The Chinese brokerage CITIC Securities estimated that China might invest nearly $140 billion annually for a full decade, according to an August report.

野村证券在10月份的一份报告中指出，这一过程“充满挑战、代价高昂”，而且进度缓慢。根据8月份的一份报告，据中信证券估计，中国可能在整整十年里每年投资近1400亿美元。

Paibang, in Shenzhen’s northwestern region, is like many other urban villages. Rows of concrete apartment blocks stand so close to each other that they are colloquially known as “handshake buildings” to describe the proximity of the neighbors. The apartments are run-down: no elevators, bars on windows and squat toilets.

排榜村位于深圳西北，看起来与许多城中村一样。一排排的混凝土公寓楼靠得很近，俗称“握手楼”。这些公寓都很破：没有电梯，窗户上有栏杆，使用蹲式厕所。

A lively shopping district is on street level — fruit and vegetable stands, secondhand shops and simple eateries. In nearby industrial parks, there are printing shops, warehouses and factories. In Paibang and three neighboring villages, the vast majority of the 59,000 residents are migrants from elsewhere in China who have moved to Shenzhen for jobs.

楼下街道的生意很热闹，有果蔬摊、二手商店和小馆子。附近的工业园里有印刷厂、仓库和工厂。在排榜村和邻近的三处城中村的5.9万名居民中，绝大多数人都是从外地来深圳找工作的农民工。

These neighborhoods are often called the “starting point of a dream.” The Chinese singer Chen Chusheng lived in an urban village in Shenzhen and performed in bars at night before he became famous. In a ballad he wrote about the experience, he sings: “People there were very close, and the distance between the buildings was just a crack.”

这些城中村总被称为“梦开始的地方”。中国歌手陈楚生成名前就曾住在深圳城中村，晚上去酒吧表演。在他创作的一首关于这段经历的抒情歌曲中，他唱道：“那里的人很亲近，楼与楼的距离只是缝隙。”

Shenzhen was named China’s first special economic zone in 1979, turning a fishing village of 300,000 people into the center of China’s experimentation with capitalism. Shenzhen became the birthplace of many of its most successful companies, including Huawei, BYD and Tencent.

1979年，深圳成为中国首个经济特区，一个人口30万的渔村就这样变成了中国资本主义实验的中心。许多最成功的企业都诞生于深圳，包括华为、比亚迪和腾讯。

But as Shenzhen grew, migrant workers, still essential to the local labor force, were priced out of the city’s newly developed neighborhoods.

但随着深圳的发展，仍占当地劳动力重要比重的农民工却被昂贵的房价挤出了这座城市新开发的社区。

In many villages, the land is held by a collective, and the buildings are owned by longtime villagers, many of whom moved out of the neighborhood a long time ago.

许多城中村的土地归集体所有，房屋所有权则属于长期居住的村民。许多村民在很久以前就已经搬走。

Gao Jia has run a secondhand furniture and electronics shop in Paibang for eight years. Last year, his landlords asked him to vacate after they agreed to hand over the building housing his store to Evergrande. He was delighted to win a reprieve after Evergrande’s problems brought the redevelopment project to a halt and prevented his landlords from completing the building’s sale.

高佳（音）在排榜村经营一家二手家电铺子已有八年时间。去年，房东同意将商铺所在的建筑移交给恒大，因而要求他搬走。恒大出事导致改造项目暂停，房东也无法完成出售，他很高兴能得到这个喘息的机会。

“Renovating old towns does us no good at all,” Mr. Gao said. “We won’t be able to afford the rent, and we won’t be able to do business anymore.”

“改造老城区对我们没有任何好处，”高佳说。“我们付不起房租，也不可能再做生意了。”

Duan Biqiong, a stationery shop owner, said, “If there are no migrant workers, this place is nothing but an empty town.”

一家文具店的老板段碧琼（音）说，“如果没有农民工，这地方就是一座空城。”

In addition to pricing out some residents, urban village renewals are time-consuming. Local governments must negotiate agreements from cooperatives that own land as well as individual building owners before knocking down structures.

除了价格令人望而却步，改造城中村也会耗费大量时间。在拆除房屋之前，地方政府必须与拥有土地的集体以及房屋的个人所有者协商一致。

Officials in Guangzhou, China’s third-biggest city, with 127 urban village renovations underway this year, said the average completion time for a project had stretched from 5.5 years to more than seven years, according to local media. The longer a rehabilitation takes, the more it costs.

据地方媒体报道，中国第三大城市广州今年要开展127个城中村改造项目，该市官员称完成一个项目的平均周期在5.5年到7年多不等。周期越长，成本就越高。

Jackle Zhuang, 44, owns a five-story apartment building in Paibang. When he first moved in with his family as a teenager, the neighborhood was barely developed. The nearest bus stop was a 30-minute walk away. Today, Paibang has its own subway stop.

44岁的杰克·庄（音）在排榜村有一栋五层公寓。当十几岁的他第一次与家人搬到这里，周围基本一片荒芜。去最近的公交车站也要走30分钟。如今，排榜村已经通了地铁。

But Mr. Zhuang doesn’t live in the neighborhood anymore. He moved with his wife and child this year to Chengdu, a city in western China more than 1,000 miles away. In Paibang, he said, there were no parks nearby, and it wasn’t safe for children because the buildings were so close to the road.

但杰克·庄不住在这里了。今年，他带着妻子和孩子搬到了近两千公里外的成都。他说排榜村附近没有公园，孩子住在这里也不安全，因为房屋离马路太近了。

“There is probably nothing else good, apart from the cheap rent,” Mr. Zhuang said. “It’s not an ideal living environment.”

“除了房租便宜，应该也没有其他特别好的了，”杰克·庄说。“就不是一个理想的生活的环境。”

While he is ready to move on, he is not sure if the deal he signed with Evergrande in 2020 to sell his building is still valid or whether he will need to negotiate again with the new developer. He is hoping to trade in his current apartments for units in a new building.

虽然他决定开始新生活，但他不确定在2020年与恒大签署的售楼协议是否仍然有效，也不知道他是否需要与新开发商再次谈判。他希望把这栋楼置换成新建的单元房。

For now, all he can do is wait and see.

眼下，他能做的只有观望。