Urban Housing in Mainland China: A New Chapter

Based on the results of field work conducted during 1997 and 1998 in Beijing, Shanghi, Tianjin, Guangzhou and Ningbo, this paper sets out a modest agenda. It briefly reviews China’s urban housing initiatives to date, then questions whether these form part of a coherent and comprehensive housing strategy. While focusing on issues rather than data; it ends by stressing that planning without adequate facts is problematic. The authors have not aimed to provide a detailed account of China’s housing reform history, since this is documented extensively in numerous research studies. The spotlight is on questions that still need to be answered, rather than on the more ambitious task of prescribing a blueprint for simultaneously resolving all the issues at hand.