Destination News - Asia / Pacific (Survey‪)‬

New York (AirGuide - Destination News Asia / Pacific) Jul 11, 2010 Shanghai residents say forced out for Disneyland Hiding in the back of a taxi, Wang Yuchen is too scared to be seen near the sea of mud and rubble that until weeks ago was his home village and is now set to be a building site for Walt Disney Co's theme park. The engineer son of farmer parents, he is one of a growing number of China's emerging middle class to find themselves suddenly on the wrong side of the ruling Communist Party, over the hot issue of land seizures. A Chinese construction company is razing his home village, a bucolic enclave on the outskirts of China's frenetic financial capital, and the empty land will be handed over to the U.S. entertainment giant, demolition workers and state media say. Both Disney and the Shanghai city government declined comment on whether evictions were to make way for the theme park. "Disney and the Shanghai government are still working together to finalise the terms of the final deal. It would be premature to comment on specifics until those discussions are complete," a Shanghai-based Disney spokeswoman told Reuters. "All relocation queries are best directed to the Shanghai Municipal Government," she added. Wang says he doesn't object to moving but has not been offered adequate compensation for the two storey villa-style home into which the family had poured their life savings. "The country has to develop and this is a good project for Shanghai. But an amusement park for people to enjoy themselves should not be built on the ruins of our happiness," the quiet, intense Wang told Reuters in a quiet corner of a Shanghai cafe, leafing through photos, eviction notices and legal challenges. The developers have offered up to three flats to replace his property, but they are the tiny size of most homes in overcrowded Shanghai, altogether barely half the size of his villa. His parents, who have little income, will have no land to grow food. The apartments are allocated based on the number of people in a relocated family, not the value of their old house, and evictees have to contribute sizeable downpayments. Jul 9, 2010.