Villages in Shenzhen : persistence and transformation of an old social system in an emerging mega city In the history of villages in Shenzhen rich traditional cultural resources that are directly related to the folk life in urban corporate community still exist today synchronously agricultural economy of urban corporate community is transformed into joint stock economy and natural villages are transformed into heterogeneous space of city. The most significant fact in the modern social transition is that modern societies have surpassed traditional societies and cities have surpassed the country. Weber Durkheim Tönnies Simmel and others devoted themselves to cultivating the essence of social transition. The most influential theory to observe and analyze it is the two tiered approach of ideal type. Tönnies made distinction between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft Durkheim distinguished mechanical solidarity and organic solidarity and Redfield analyzed folk society and urban society. In those classical theories the former transit to the later is considered to be a general rule of transition from traditional society to modern society and from traditional community to modern community. However ever since Redfield used the dependent relationship and interactive framework of great tradition and little tradition to explain various complicated phenomena in the transition from tradition to modern in 1950s he suggested that a folk urban continuum can be formed in the transition from folk society to urban society. ...