fringe apartments

On my way to Shenzhen, I noticed that along the fringes of large urban centers there are some patches of newly transformed residential villages. The rise of this apartment typology here is due to 1) the rising wealth amongst the rural dwellers; 2) the increasing demand for suburban housing; and 3) the continuing industrialization of large scaled farming.
These 3-4 story apartment styled housing are situated on what used to be railroad-side strip farmland. Noise and vibration aside, they are significant improvements upon previous rural structures that often lack water/sewage and electricity. In comparison to the skyscraper apartments, these tightly packed

While there are many different decorations and styles of ornament used on these apartments, for the most part, they share a very rigid set of components: There is the stairs core that provides access and division to the units with a sharp point to the skies; the balconies that open to the south for light in the winter and sun protection in the summer; the load bearing construction method that limits (or enables) different spatial compositions (the ability for developers to sell by #bedroom/#bath); the tightly packed (dare I say urban) condition of these developments; and a one story wall that encloses a tight front yard just before the narrow streets.