A discarded toilet bowl lies on a pile of rubble in Tongzhou, a Beijing suburb which is busily remodelling itself as a "modern" and "international" city. On one side of the railway, a string of single-storey dwellings, built of brick and tile, have yet to be demolished. Their occupants make the most of the surrounding debris, loading bent window frames onto the back of bicycles to be sold as scrap. On the other side of the tracks tower new blocks of flats, more than 20 storeys high, waiting for their first residents.
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