Carlos Barria/Reuters
A woman stands at the balcony of her house, which will be demolished to build new apartments in downtown Shanghai.
But all that new infrastructure and construction requires space, which means residents are sometimes forced to move in order to make room for new projects. Some people refuse to leave their homes, however, often because they consider the compensation they've been offered to be too low.
In China, these buildings that are left standing alone as development progresses around them are called "nail houses," since they stick out like a nail that can't be hammered down.
Take a look at a selection of "nail houses" that have been photographed over the past decade.