One new building project that exemplifies some of these trends is visible southeast of Beijing. Fangzhuang is a new city of 78,000 where in 1984 only 1,000 people lived in agricultural villages just outside the Outer City. In the 1977 image, agriculture, represented by red, dominates the area. By 2022, those lands have been swallowed up by development.

Fangzhuang includes condominiums, 3-story apartment buildings, schools, parks, shops, and a community center. Such prestigious work-units as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have bought blocks of apartments, and since 1994 some foreigners have moved in. Operations such as health care, day care, and garbage collection are still managed by socialist-style committees of residents.