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Abstract
Public housing, a crucial component of the welfare state, is often viewed as an economic burden. We confront this conventional view and provide an alternative understanding of public housing in mixed economies. Through the lens of China, we conduct case studies and investigate the rationales of public housing provision in two high-profile, industrializing and deindustrializing cities – Chongqing and Shenzhen, respectively. We find that, despite variegated local conditions, Chinese municipal governments strategically provide public housing as an instrument of city development. We construct an open-ended framework that forges intricate links among cost-benefit considerations. It systematizes hypotheses that assemble the patterns of dynamic relationships among constituents of local decision-making, mediating the dimensions of development stage, time and space. The framework facilitates a new and illuminating way of conceptualizing policy rationales and of explaining variations in local programmes. Our proposition complements theories of the mixed economy of welfare and invites further elaboration.
Acknowledgements
The research is further developed at the China Future City Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. We thank all reviewers, Ray Forrest, Ngai Ming Yip, Jie Chen, Xiaoling Zhang, Lan Deng and Lawrence J. Vale for their valuable feedback.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 The process of social reproduction refers to the way individuals as social beings are ‘produced’ rather than goods and services in the process of production (Gough, Citation1980). Gough (Citation1980) suggests that the welfare state may affect social reproduction in four ways: by adapting policies to secure more efficient reproduction of the labor force, by shifting emphasis to the social control of destabilizing groups in society, by raising productivity within the social services and by reprivatizing parts of the welfare state.
2 A ‘developmental’ welfare entails state interventions that guide economic growth towards a trajectory that is more humane and compatible with social development (Midgley & Tang, Citation2001; Stephens, Citation2010; Zhu, Citation2005).
3 Housing affordability is a multifaceted concept. It can be assessed in many ways, such as by access to housing ownership (measured by the ratio of the price of a standardized unit of housing to incomes), the burden of housing costs (measured by the balance between housing and non-housing expenditures) and housing-induced poverty (measured by the residual income after meeting housing needs) (Chen et al., Citation2010). China’s different public housing programmes exhibit different approaches to addressing housing affordability.
4 In 2011, about 1.3 trillion yuan (201 billion dollars) were needed for building 10 million units of public housing. Over 100 billion yuan (15.5 billion dollars) were subsidized by the central government, and over 800 billion yuan (123.7 billion dollars) were raised through the private sector, beneficiaries of public housing programs and their employer enterprises. This still required local governments to raise over 400 billion yuan (61.9 billion dollars).
5 For example, among the 10 million public housing units planned in 2010, 44%, 30% and 25.7% of them were planned in the western, eastern, and central provinces, respectively. While the eastern provinces have much higher demands for low-income housing, the western provinces were assigned to build more. Experienced developers perceive this as a part of the central government’s strategy to redress regional imbalance of urban development.
6 Our study aims at ‘societal significance’ (rather than ‘statistical significance’) and at providing insights about the ‘society as a whole’ (rather than prototyping strategies for ‘the population of similar cases’) (Burawoy et al., Citation1991). We generate ‘case-based logic’ (rather than ‘sample-based statistical inference’), and aim for ‘saturation’ (rather than ‘representation’) of the research (Small, Citation2009a).
7 Industrialization and deindustrialization are evolving concepts with contestable definitions. For the purpose of simplification, we borrow the following definitions and highlight their linkage to the emergence of manufacturing and service sectors. Industrialization is a process during which an agrarian and handicraft economy transitions to one that relies on machine manufacture; deindustrialization is a process by which industry declines or disappears, while service sector grows, often accompanied by foreign competition and technological advancement (Pula, Citation2017). During the twelfth five-year period, Chongqing’s economic development was mainly driven by the growth of machine manufacturing; Shenzhen was experiencing the decline of traditional manufacturing, and its economic development was increasingly supported by the service and technology sectors.
8 Thanks to support from China’s Social Science Foundation and the State Council’s Development Research Center, we conducted fieldwork during multiple trips to Chongqing and Shenzhen since 2011. For each city, we reviewed open source data and government documents and interviewed local officials, major developers and public housing residents.
9 Bo Xilai served as the Communist Party Secretary of Chongqing from 2007 to 2012.
10 Bo’s ‘Chongqing Model’ entailed a set of economic and social policies that were intended to address diverse challenges facing modern China, such as rising inequalities, the urban-rural divide and declining morality. It was characterized mainly by heightened state intervention and the promotion of a neo-leftist ideology. While promoting economic growth and poverty alleviation, Bo also campaigned against organized crimes, strengthened policing, increased spending on public works, promoted egalitarian values and launched a ‘red culture’ movement. In particular, the ‘Chongqing Model’ largely subsidized housing for the poor and created social policies to enable rural population to move to the city and join the urban economy. During Bo’s leadership, Chongqing sustained double-digit percentage GDP growth. His bold, high-profile maneuvers dramatically raised his profile as the ‘champion of the Chinese New Left’ both within and beyond China. However, his leadership style diverged from that of the national leadership at that time. Bo became a controversial figure (Johnson, Citation2012; Liu, Citation2011; Miles, Citation2011).
11 The nation has designated Shenzhen as a pilot zone for Comprehensive Reform, a National Economic Center, a National Innovative City, a Demonstration City for Socialism with Chinese Characteristics and a Global City (NDRC, Citation2008).
12 The area of the SEZ was extended to include the entirety of Shenzhen in July 2010.
13 While Shenzhen’s official population was reported to be around nine million in 2000, there were 241 urban villages with a land area of approximately 43.9 km2 which housed approximately 2.15 million people (Song & Zenou, Citation2012). As of 2009, Shenzhen had 437 urban villages, which provided 2.7 million units, over 150 million m2 of affordable rental housing for over 12 million people. As of 2010, 8 million people out of Shenzhen’s population of 10.4 million (77 per cent) were migrants, most of whom lived in urban villages.
14 Shenzhen had been a popular destination for rural migrations. From 2000 to 2010, eighty per cent of Shenzhen’s population increase (over 3.3 million) came from low-skilled migrants. However, these workers are no longer desired for the city’s future growth.
15 Low-skilled populations are being driven out together with businesses that are high in pollution, high in energy consumption and low in production efficiency.
16 A line of housing policy evaluation focuses on three aspects: effectiveness, efficiency and equity. Effectiveness refers to the degree to which a policy target has been achieved; efficiency refers to whether the policy is implemented with low cost; and equity can be ‘horizontal’ – equal treatment of people in equal positions – and ‘vertical’ – unequal treatment of people in unequal positions, with more subsidies to those in worse condition (Yi & Huang, Citation2014).
17 Shenzhen has launched a series of favorable policies to attract talent. It currently focuses on building gongzufang (public rental housing), anjufang (comfortable housing) and rencaifang (talent housing). All gongzufang and some rencaifang are for rent. In addition, it also provides various kinds of rent subsidies to the talent.
18 Commentaries have reported that Shenzhen has always significantly underestimated its actual population size due to highly frequent migration and difficulties in conducting censuses.