The city's relationship with high-rises goes back to 1980, when China's reformist leader, Deng Xiaoping, declared that a swath of farmland along the Hong Kong border would become a so-called Special Economic Zone. The decision meant that companies could operate with fewer of the restrictions of a planned economy -- China's first major experiment with free markets since the Communist revolution of 1949. Investors from Hong Kong -- and beyond -- rushed across the border to build factories and other businesses.
