Housing the urban poor in post-reform China: Some empirical evidence from the city of Nanjing

This paper provides first-hand empirical evidence about the differentiation of housing conditions among China’s urban poor families based on a case study of Nanjing. The main findings include: (1) the Hukou family registration system has strong differential effects on poor families’ housing conditions; (2) housing conditions among the urban poor are tightly associated with privatization and home ownership, where non-owners face more severe housing difficulties than nominal owners; and (3) resettlement has played a positive role in improving the poor’s housing conditions, but its positive effects are only present in cases where work units or the government has taken the responsibility of housing the resettled poor. These findings show that housing the urban poor in post-reform China is largely: (1) path-dependent, (2) privatization-oriented, and (3) development-driven, and a mechanism that can pro-actively ensure the poor’s basic right to housing is still lacking.     

对城市贫民筹措资金

住房和城市基础设施的融资方式是一个人们重新开始辩论的话题，是创造性革新的源泉，联合国人居署执行主任办公室的政治顾问ChrisWilliams与政策和战略规划特别顾问NicholasYou写道。在本文中，他们评估了非洲、亚洲和拉丁美洲的筹资情况。在这些地方，对住房和基本服务的需求远远超出供给水平，大多数城市人口居住在贫民窟。[编者按]     

Housing and consumer markets in urban China

In China, the real estate sector has been one of the most powerful driving forces in economic development over the past two decades. The housing sector, particularly, has a strong wealth effect on consumption. This has attracted much attention not only in academia but also in society at large. Yet little is known about the relationship between housing and consumption in urban China. An investigation into the causal relationship between the money flow of the housing market and that of the consumer market for local citizens in urban China applies a recently developed method: renormalized partial directed coherence (renormalized PDC). This is an advanced tool to exclude the indirect relationships between the housing and consumer markets. Since the original renormalized PDC cannot show the result numerically, we quantify the relationships by developing a set of criteria for further discussion within the renormalized PDC framework. The empirical work reveals two major findings: (1) the retail price level is quite useful in predicting the housing turnover-income ratio; (2) the rental price is one of the most important factors affecting the fluctuation of retail prices for the case of urban areas in China. A housing turnover-income ratio (HTIR) is developed to evaluate the money flow into the housing market, which provides a new way to carry out data analysis when the usual indicators might be inappropriate. The research provides a reference point for economic policymaking for the relationship between the money flow into the housing market and the money flow into the consumer market.     

向城市贫民提供可靠的能源

非正式住区的居民经常从私营的中介方那里获得电力。中介方获得电力设备接口，然后向邻居们出售电力，通常是根据使用的电器数量和种类，按月收取固定的费用。     

城市贫民的另类居住方案

介绍了城市贫民的另类居住方案，并对其优点进行了阐述，分析了这种方案在上海实施的可能性，从居住权、住房管理、卫生设施等方面提出了具体的实施细则。     

城市贫民住房问题探讨

<正>实际上,了解一下我国住房问题和政府财力就能知道,目前的廉租房政策并不是解决大多数人住房问题的良方。在目前各级政府破解住房问题的种种思路和举措中,在今年两会的会场内外,廉租房都是"热词"。许多人以为,政府只要多推出一些廉租房,城镇居民住房中的主要问题就     

我国城镇商品住房需求的行为特征分析

从宏观经济学中家庭储蓄与消费行为的基本理论出发,建立住房需求方程,并将误差修正模型应用于方程的估计,进而分析我国住房需求的长期与短期的行为特征。研究表明,当前我国住房市场中住房需求偏离长期均衡关系的短期波动较小,并具有很强的恢复长期均衡关系的能力;住房需求具有较高的收入弹性,不管从长期还是短期来看,需求均伴随收入增长而高速增长;住房面积需求具有极大的刚性;目前我国住房需求的增加是一个必然的过程,适当增加供给尤其是公共住房的供给是解决住房问题的根本出路。研究结果可为政府制定以需求为主导的住宅用地供应计划、进行住房价格的宏观调控提供参考。     

Housing pathways of young starters in urban Malaysia

Journal of Housing and the Built Environment - Young starters refer to those between 25 and 34&nbsp;years of age who are establishing themselves in society (Zairul et al., 2015). Traditionally,...     

Housing and urban blacks: A social distance-residential distance view

The relation between the diversity of available housing within the black ghetto and the diversity of demand within the same region is the concern of this study. Specifically, the degree to which the black housing market is able to accommodate the variations in demand by black households is examined. The relation between social and residential distances, which is operationalized by employment of the index of dissimilarity, is used as the means for assessing this degree of housing accommodation. The black population of Milwaukee, Wisconsin is used as a case study, while the white population is included for comparative purposes. Results of the analysis show that the supply and location of housing has failed to provide a housing stock that is diverse enough to accommodate the needs of the city's blacks. Middle class blacks may be effected most by the constrained market, because these house-holds are less able to adjust housing according to income than are lower income groups. As a result of this housing allocation process, the social spatial form of the ghetto may differ substantially from the remainder of the city.     

Housing segregation and the poor: New trends in French social rented housing

Traditionally, French social housing was housing low‐paid workers with a regular job. The very poor were in private dilapidated housing. Today a new pattern is emerging: the very poor and the deprived are in the most dilapidated fraction of social housing. Far from improving their social integration, dilapidated social housing estates are stigmatizing them. Social tenants are still second‐class citizens.     

Housing finance for lower income urban households in Zimbabwe

Housing finance systems in developing countries have been the subject of considerable international agency research and lending attention in recent years. The lack of availability of finance for public sector housing programmes and for the purchase of construction of housing by all income groups in urban areas is typically a major constraint on the ability of supply to meet demand. However, national efforts have often not dealt systematically with the housing finance system as a whole. The housing finance system in Zimbabwe is described and critically analysed in this paper, paying particular attention to the provision of funds for local authority housing programmes for low income residents, the place of housing finance institutions in the national finance system, the ability of the building societies to attract savings, and their lending programmes. The results of government measures to transfer responsibility for lending to low‐income households from local authorities to the building societies since the mid‐1980s are evaluated. It is concluded that Zimbabwe has an unusually well‐developed financial sector and housing finance system for a recently independent developing country. Although this evolved to meet the needs of the settler population, the extension of its activities into lending for low‐income aided self‐help housing was successful, within limits. However, events of the early 1990s demonstrate the vulnerability of such a system to the changes accompanying liberalisation. Suggestions are made for further possible reforms and the importance of monitoring the effects of economic liberalisation on the system and its beneficiaries stressed.     

Housing stress and mental health of migrant populations in urban China

Social epidemiological studies have long understood housing as a social determinant of mental health. However, most studies have focused on the formal housing sector and the conceptualisation of housing is limited to the housing per se. This study aims to bridge the gap by investigating the mental health impact of housing disadvantages concerning the migrant population in China, who are largely excluded from the formal housing sector. Drawing from recent writings on stress as the intermediary agent between modern city life and mental illness, the study examines the relationship between housing and neighbourhood conditions, perceived stress and mental health status. Using a large-scale survey conducted in twelve Chinese cities in 2009, this research found that informal housing tenants have the highest level of perceived stress and worst mental health status compared to dormitory tenants and formal housing residents. Poor housing conditions are significantly associated with perceived stress but not with mental health, while the neighbourhood social environment significantly predicts both perceived stress and mental health. The paper concludes by calling for more ethnographic research on migrants' resilience and stress-coping strategies and more attention in urban planning and housing policy to address the vulnerability and adversity of migrant settlements.     

Housing and home-making in low-income urban settlements: Sri Lanka and Colombia

Enabling the making of home is central to the practices of housing, but constructing home is more than building adequate shelter. It is about establishing, nurturing and managing social relationships and bringing together spaces, objects and elements to represent and celebrate desired relationships, events and memories. Drawing on empirical data from Sri Lanka and Colombia, this paper examines in detail the practices of home-making in low-income settlements. By focussing on people’s conceptions of home and by identifying key social and societal practices, the paper offers insights into the processes of home-making among ordinary dwellers in developing countries and calls for culturally sensitive and holistic housing interventions which support and complement these processes.