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Rural villages, urban villages, mouse tribes, and high-rise apartments are four living environments that co-exist in Beijing, China as a result of China's rapid urbanization. The growth of new industries and the demand for residential and commercial space required that city governments clean up and make space available for new usage. Because of the high profit that could be gained from leasing farmland to developers, the village collective leased or co-developed land compulsorily, which led to high-rise residential, industrial or commercial buildings. The old villages proper, however, were left alone due to the high social and economic costs. As a result, most of the urban villages and many of the high-rise buildings originally came from what were rural villages. Mouse tribes, on the other hand, are a unique environment that co-exists within high-rise buildings. All of these environments are the result of China's rapid urbanization and its phenomena -- floating population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An abstract of the article "Urban Village--Urban Islands in China" by Yu-Huan Wang is presented.