In this paper,I address both the practical and architectural conflicts that arise from an anthropological perspective regarding the late lowrise vernacular housing legacy in Shanghai known as the Lilong.Dated back to as early as the late nineteenth century,the Lilong housing is Chinas first point of contact with the western dwelling culture.Before the 1978 economic reform,the Lilong housing were the dominating -if not only-forms of housing in Shanghai.The Lilong housing and neighborhoods symbolize modern Shanghai hi story and urban neighborhood life through micro-politics and interconnectedness of microcommunities. What fascinates many scholars is how residents have consistently been adapting their lifestyle to fit the physicality of the houses.Life in the Lilong neighborhoods has its advantage which is the "sense of community,intimacy,and the continuity of history,"which the individual room in sterile highrise apartments cannot provide. The houses have accommodating different groups of people over time and it is being conceived as an important "transnational heritage" to be embraced by "China as a terrain for transnationaJ (global) development" discourse.Nevertheless, the Lilong housing today stand in sharp contrast with the growing trend of propertyled growth, fueled by the changing family structure of postreform urban Chinese society, that favors higher densityand higher return housing developmem.That said,whereas many scholars utilize "heritage thetoric" to claim that the Lilong houses and neighborhoods are the representation of the history of Shanghai;therefore must be preserved to maintain the identity of the city,there are a number of sensible arguments about the downsides of the Ldong housing,including those coming from the residents themselves.I look at how such conflicts play out,identifying the key elements of the discourse and the reality of this situation.