China.
A large proportion of China’s estimated 100,000 or so public protests each year are driven by rage over compulsory evictions. Over the past decade, hundreds of thousands of Chinese have been forcibly evicted from their homes to make way for one of the greatest property booms of all time.
Rapacious developers, often in cahoots with government officials, rarely pay enough compensation for the property they seize, and instead have been known to employ gangs of thugs to chase out stubborn homeowners. Property development is one of China’s most lucrative industries, with house prices rising 68 per cent in Shanghai last year.