Fading glory
As the area succumbs to modernity, it won't take long for the internet bars, cheap hotels and small stores that have made Sanhe a paradise for dirt-poor idlers to call it a day, according to Yang.
He sees Sanhe's fading from the scene as manifest destiny; an inevitable part of Shenzhen's ambition to build new, gleaming residential and commercial districts to reflect its stunning rise.
However, even in the midst of such unbridled development, consideration must be given to the plight of the migrant workers.
"During its heyday, the three-story offices of Sanhe Human Resources were a sea of people. But now, the bustle of recruitment can only be seen on the ground floor," said Liu Yong, a dashen who has lived in Sanhe for a long time.
Fielding Chen Shiyuan, an Asia economist at Bloomberg Intelligence in Hong Kong, said the ever-widening wealth gap is no excuse for people's choice of underemployment and even unemployment.
Despite that, the chasm between the vast virtual world depicted by the internet and smartphone, and the migrant workers' limited real-world choices are a real issue.
That issue looms large as migrant workers are exposed to, and overwhelmed by, inequality - it is a time bomb that has its roots in Shenzhen's meteoric rise, he said.
About 35 years ago, Shenzhen was a sleepy fishing village. However, since 1979, when it was designated as the country's first special economic zone, the city has become the showpiece of the fastest urbanization in history.
"Though 'Let some people get rich first' was the famous instruction for China's market reforms, it's hard to deny that our society is becoming worryingly unequal. One of the most extreme and often overlooked side effects has been Sanhe," Chen said.
In Longhua, it's almost impossible to find a new housing development with apartments that cost less than 60,000 yuan per square meter. "That figure may sound unimaginable and meaningless to low-paid migrant workers.
"It has become increasingly difficult for second-and third-generation unskilled, low-tech immigrants to find a place in Shenzhen, as the city no longer makes its fortune by churning out cheap, labor-intensive clothes, electronics and toys for foreign brands," Fang said.
"Those deemed good-for-nothing and incapable of creating value and making a contribution may end up being abandoned to their fate. That includes people at Sanhe, who are being discarded and forgotten."
News of Sanhe's sagging fortunes has trickled in almost every other month this year.
"I've heard the labor marketplace is now on the wane, and the urban villages in the central district of Shenzhen are disappearing to make way for lucrative commercial and residential projects," Xu said. "I've also heard that the days are numbered for so-called low-end immigrants like me in some cities."
But Shenzhen should be different, he said.
Fang hopes that Shenzhen's craze for skyscrapers will never come at the price of excluding migrant workers.
"A combination of urban villages, the labor marketplace and Sanhe dashen reflects the other half of the world in Shenzhen. We should never lose our awe and understanding of the city's dizzying economic growth."
