No Place in the City: The Segregation of Affordable Formal Private Rentals in Beijing

ABSTRACT

Residential segregation by income has become an emerging concern in Chinese cities. Existing literature on residential segregation has mostly focused on the informal rental market, and little is known about the formal private rentals. Nevertheless, with the continued removal of informal settlements, formal private rentals are likely to play a more pivotal role in the provision of affordable housing in the upcoming years. Using data from online rental listings, this article examines changes in the spatial distribution of affordable formal private rentals in Beijing between 2015 and 2018. Our study finds that the availability of affordable formal private rentals decreased drastically in the central city area in the 3-year period, whereas the remaining affordable units in the central-city subdistricts became increasingly segregated from other higher priced rentals. When compared across rentals of different price ranges, the affordable rentals ended up being the most segregated in both 2015 and 2018, with a city-level index of dissimilarity of 0.71 and 0.75, respectively. The research findings necessitate policies that promote affordable rental provision in central locations.

KEYWORDS:

• residential segregation
• housing affordability
• formal private rental
• Beijing

Acknowledgments

We extend special thanks to Yingling Fan and three anonymous reviewers for their critical comments on previous drafts.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Migrants are people without local household registration (hukou) in the city where they live.

2. The distinction between formal and informal is a contractual one and not a structural one. The formal/informal divide can and does occur within urban villages.

3. Group rentals (qun zu fang) are private rental units that have been illegally converted to overcrowded dormitories.

4. Huang and Yi (2015) found that tenants who live in basement rentals are socially segregated from the residents who live above ground. Oreglia (2009) found that low-income migrant women who live in urban neighborhoods rarely interact with their urban neighbors.

5. The seven new towns, except Yizhuang, are preexisting seats of the district governments. Yizhuang is a state-level economic and technological development zone that was established in 1992.

6. A point of interest is commonly used in cartography to represent a particular feature using an icon that occupies a particular geographical point (e.g., a restaurant, a shopping mall, or a hospital).

7. Beijing’s population decreased between 2016 and 2018 because of the municipal government’s efforts to control population growth, especially in the central city area. See C. Wong et al. (2018) for details.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yi Wang

Yi Wang is a PhD student at the University of Minnesota, Humphrey School of Public Affairs. Her research focuses on affordable housing policy, housing inequality, and urban redevelopment.

Edward G. Goetz

Edward G. Goetz is professor of urban planning at the University of Minnesota, Humphrey School of Public Affairs, and director of the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs. His research focuses on housing policy as relates to issues of race and income inequality.