China’s Urban Housing: The Review of Three Housing Typologies and Patterns

Liska Gálvez1, Ali Cheshmehzangi1

1
Department of Architecture and Built Environment,
The University of Nottingham Ningbo, China

Abstract
During central-planning economy system the state socialist economies provided an equal public
housing to urban citizens. As a result, the urbanism landscape was typified by a mixture of land-uses
but with a homogeneous neighbourhood (Danwei compounds).
Several scholars have noted that with the current housing reform (market oriented), the
homogeneous system has been broken into many different residential housing, and as a consequence,
the social divisions are more obvious. In fact, China’s urban scenery is growing by various landscapes
and is comprised of the specialisation of land-use with multi-nucleation, district specialisation, zoning
planning and residential communities. The new spatial order has then created social problems such as
the privatization of the urban space, labelling of social classes, residential segregation and
gentrification phenomenon. While from the socio-spatial differentiation point of view, the residential
differentiations cannot be denied, the fact is that, a homogenous phenomenon has emerged in the
current transformation of urban landscape with new forms and patterns. This homogeneous model is
produced, in part, through the processes of comprehensive urban renewal and the real property-led
redevelopment. The model is characterized by the replacement of dilapidated dwellings with high-rise
commercial apartment buildings at the expense of displacing most of the local residents.
In the context of China’s urban housing transition, this paper explores how the recent trend of
urban planning and urban renewal in Chinese cities has resulted in predominance of a homogeneous
model of housing: replacement of dilapidated dwellings with high-rise commercial apartment
buildings. Through the analysis of three housing patterns: 1) urban village; 2) affordable housing; and
3) gated community, this study examines their characteristics, differences and problems.
The results from the comparative analysis illustrate the Chinas’ challenge in its current housing
reform. In particular when China’s ongoing housing transition is looking to move from one model
housing system (one work unit- one market) to a dual track model named “Affordable & Commodity
Housing Parallel System”. This paper highlight the challenges of this model which aims to preserve
the commodity nature of the urban housing, while provide affordable housing for low income families.

Key words: urban, housing, China, housing pattern

Introduction

In the current third stage of China’s housing reform, Chinese cities are undergoing a
dynamic process of urban restructuring, leading a tremendous impact on land appropriation
for urban growth, redevelopment, and the reorganization of social groups over space. The
third stage of the housing reform has developed the free market as the main channel for the
provision of residential housing. Within this transition process, the residential pattern has
completely changed the spatial quality of urban housing and urban living.
Research on housing patterns in China has focused on three main topics of ‘housing
reform policy’ (Wang, 2011; Man et al., 2011), ‘socio-spatial pattern of Chinese cities’ (Liu et
al., 2014; Song and Wu, 2010; He and Wu, 2006; Gaubatz, 1999; Madrazo 2012), and
‘individual residential units and affordable housing’ (Yang and Chen, 2014) including urban
villages or Village in the city (ViCs). However, only few have so far comprehensively analysed
different housing patterns of Chinese cities. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate the
complexity of housing pattern and the homogeneous model that has been predominantly in
large urban cities.
This paper has three specific objectives. First, this study provides an analysis of the
structure of urban housing patterns in contemporary Chinese cities adding substance to an
understanding of how the new urban development plan and housing policies are shaping
the pattern of China’s housing. Second, the study focuses on three different typologies of
housing as examples to observe different challenges of spatial differentiation in Chinese
cities. The final objective is shed light on the current’s issue of urban housing transition and
one of its major challenges.

Housing Reform and Three different housing patterns

Prior to 1978, urban housing was a part of the socialists’ welfare system and the work
unit (danwei) allocated housing free of charge to employees and their families. The housing
reform in China began in 1980 had an initial goal to solve problems resulting from housing
shortage and poor quality and overcrowding housing.
In the current third-stage of housing reform (1999-2006), the plan aims to realise
housing commercialisation according to the principles of a socialist planned market economy.
However, the government is facing other major issues, such as, inflated housing prices,
affordability, bubbles and shortages. One of the results of this urban renewal market
oriented is a residential pattern very diverse, such as ViCs, Affordable Housing and Gated
Communities. These three different residential/housing vary according their location,
demographic characteristics and socio-spatial pattern.

1) Village in the City (ViCs)

The shortage and absence of affordable housing for poor communities has led the
emergence of village in the city (ViCs), known as Chinese slums. ViCs are then become one
of the important features of Chinese cities’ socio-spatial differentiation. There are nearly 867
urban villages in Beijing (Mangurian and Ray, 2010) and more than 200 in Guangzhou (Lin
and De Meulder, 2012). Shenzhen’s 318 urban villages accommodate half of the city’s 14
million inhabitants (Zacharias and Tang, 2010). Given the complex institutional structure and
the newly phenomena, different approaches are adopted depending on the assessment of
costs and benefits, resources and political implications (actively supports, promotes, utilizes
tolerates and overcomes) (Schoon & Altrock, 2014). China has launched some affordable
housing programmes, including the ‘Peaceful Living Project (PLP)’ programme, the
‘Economic and Comfortable Housing (ECH)’ programme, the ‘Cheap-Rent Housing (CRH)’
program, the ‘Price-Cap Housing (PCH)’ program, the ‘Public Rent Housing (PRH)’ program,
and the ‘Social Housing’ program (Zou, 2014). However, these programmes have failed to
meet the target of housing demand and have excluded the major urban work force, i.e. the
rural migrants. For instance, in terms of the housing management system, housing is still
directly allocated to public officials and workers who are employed by large state owned
companies (Zhao and Ge, 2014; Ya, 2011). This means that the dual structure system
characterised by co-existence of redistributive practices as socialist legacy and emerging
market mechanism, still plays a key role in residential location, housing tenure, and housing
quality. In addition, all these social housing programmes are only accessible to local
residents and few migrants as the main beneficiaries, since the criteria includes to have a
steady job and holder local Hukou (Lin et al., 2014; Wu, 2004; Zhao, 2013; Yu and Cai, 2013).
All this characteristics such as location, demographic characteristics and socio-spatial
patterns can be seen in the case of Xiushui Community. It is one of the two remaining old
residential districts of the City of Ningbo, China (figure 1). With a total area of 5.73 hectares,
this traditional residential district includes around 2,700 housing units, a combination of
both formal and informal buildings. The overall population of the area is estimated 7,000
people, with around 4,700 as non-permanent (i.e. rural migrants) or non-native residents.
This housing area is a typical ageing community with at least 1,800 elderly. The whole area
has about 2,000 registered residents, providing us the fact that this area includes many low-
income rural workers. The whole area is comprised of houses, commercial streets,
communal spaces and on-street markets. Such housing pattern is vanishing from China’s
urban landscapes as such communities are in long-term deprivation. Although very liveable
and planned in a mixed-use setting with sufficient access to nearby areas, there are no inner
green landscaping and facilities for the residents.

Figure 1 – Approximate setting of the Xiushui District, Central Ningbo, China (Source: from final year
architecture students’ work at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China, Autumn 2014)

The Floor Area Ratio (FAR) of this type of housing area is often very high, approximately
between 3.0 to 5.0 (or even more in extreme cases). The spatial arrangement is organic with
a combination of internal and external networks. There is lack of greenery within such
housing areas and many informal spaces are introduced by the residents. The Surface
Coverage (SC) is very high with narrow roads and paths between the units. The density is
often very low, with most buildings ranging from 1 to 6 floors. In here, we can map
traditional courtyard houses, vernacular town/village houses and buildings from both Ming
and Qing dynasties. The two future development possibilities for such housing areas are
either renovation (for preservation and commercialization) or redevelopment (for new
housing areas). Since Xiushui community includes many protected buildings, the former is
expected.
ViCs are not a new phenomenon in China. In fact, they are result of the lack of public
housing for poor communities and the Hukou system. Under the current renewal strategy,
ViCs are expected to disappear and be transformed into residential compounds and
commercial housing. However, the demand for cheap accommodation will still exit, and
since the redevelopment projects are strongly related to the state developer projects, the
major problem of providing housing for poor communities is still unresolved.

2) Affordable Housing
Started in 1988, the abolition of the work unit-based welfare oriented housing
system was a milestone in China’s urban housing reforms. This policy conveyed that
subsidised workplace housing would no longer be provided by the Chinese government. One
of the consequences of this tendency was the emergence of housing affordability as a
serious challenge.
Affordable housing varies across region, populations, professions, and cities/
municipalities. For example, new affordable housing projects in Beijing, a city with large
amount of affordable housing, are clustered within three urban fringe districts (i.e.
Changping, Fengtai and Chaoyang), which account for 81.51% of the total area of affordable
housing (Chen et al., 2014). In Shenzhen, the pattern seems to follow the same trend.
According to the Shenzhen City Housing Planning 2008-2012, within the planning period, the
construction of affordable housing within the special zone was 23000 units, covering a
building area of 1.2 million square meters. Consequently, the construction of affordable
housing outside of the special zone was 124,000 units, covering an area building are of 6.2
million square meters (Fan Sun, 2009).
 Figure 2 – Typical housing unit of BianZhouWei Area, Changsha, Hunan (Source: Ali Cheshmehzangi, 2011)
Figure 3 – The open spaces and facilities of BianZhouWei Area (Source: Ali Cheshmehzangi, 2011)

One example of affordable housing is the BianZhouWei housing area of Changsha,

Hunan (figure 2). Similar to China’s housing developments of 1980’s and 1990’s, parts of this
housing district included low-cost mass housing construction. Starting from 2008, some of
these housing units no longer exist since the new development of high-rise housing has
taken place in the area. However, the pre-2008 condition of BianZhouWei housing area is a
remarkable example of low-income housing targeting the low-income and new emerging
medium class population. At the current time, of all housing units provided between 1970’s
to late 1990’s, five blocks of 8 storey buildings remain in this area (completed in 2000); the
rest are now replaced by new housing development, which are no longer affordable. These
remaining five blocks are home to approximately 800-1000 residents, majority of whom
were previously categorised as low-income. Each block of housing includes 7 floors of two-
sided residential units, with minimal services and some storage provision on the ground floor.
Each block includes 56 mid-sized units, which are divided in four sections of 14 units. These
houses mainly represent the housing development pattern and urban landscape of 1990s’
with a singular land-use (i.e. residential) and minimal provision of adequate landscaping and
facilities. The Floor Area Ratio (FAR) of this type of housing is often 1.0 or less, with parallel
design pattern and lack of green spaces between the buildings (figure 3). The Surface
Coverage (SC) is less than the ViCs pattern, but is between 6 to 8 floors. Since the
government has provided such housing units for the low-income people, the houses were
initially subsidised for residents in the region working in the industrial zones of the area.
Contrary to new affordable housing, many old buildings, as BianZhouWei shows,
are also expected to be transformed into residential compounds and commercial housing.
3) Gated Community or Small Residential Development (SRD)
Residential housing renewal have led to emerge of new community, in which gated
community (Xiaoqu- residential compounds) (Tomba, 2005; Wei and Zhu, 2009) has become
the standard housing pattern of the newly-built residential areas in Chinese cities. In spite of
the variations, Chinese xiaoqu could be old and new, large and small, or modified work-unit
housing estates, but they share one common design feature of being ‘gated’. The newer
xiaoqu are mostly commodity-housing projects built after 1990’s. From 2000 to 2007, China
completed 18 billion square meters of housing area, an average annual completion of 2.25
billion square meters, creating tens of thousands of residential neighborhoods, from
affordable housing to luxury villas quarters. Within this period, gated community among
urban renewal and new communities accounted for about 80 per cent (Wei and Zhu, 2009)
of the new housing projects. By 2000, Shanghai already had 83 percent of gates residential
areas. In the same year, the amount of gated community in Guangdong Province reached
about 54,000. In 2006, the City of Wuhan had approximately 2,000 gated communities. Until
2008, more than 50 per cent of the residential areas in Wuhan implemented gated
community management. Between 1998 and 2007, 340 residential areas were built in
Nanjing main urban zone and 199 of them were gated communities (Wei and Zhu, 2009).
These data indicate that gated community has become the predominant residential pattern
in China.

Figure 4 - High-rise units of Yi Jing Cui Yuan Housing area, Guangzhou, China (Source: Ali Cheshmehzangi, 2011)
Figure 5 – A typical communal open space and cluster of mid-rise housing blocks in Yi Jing Cui Yuan housing
area (Source: Ali Cheshmehzangi, 2011)
A typical model of gated community would include several high-rise, mid-rise and
possibly few low-rise residential units, a podium of retail or commercial units at one or two
sides of the block, covering two or three floors of non-residential units.
 In here, a typical example of gated community is Yi Jing Cui Yuan housing area,
located in the City of Guangzhou (figure 4). Built in early 2000’s, this model of housing
includes a variety of residential units (4-8 units per floor) at various heights and densities,
communal spaces, open play grounds and internal public spaces for the residents (figure 5).
This housing area includes a mixed housing provision of high-rise and mid-rise apartments.
Such housing area, having all its units occupied, would often house around 3,000 to 7,000
residents, depending on the block size and density. The provision of retail podiums and a
more mixed-use development on the edges of such housing development, help to create a
mixed living environment with adequate accessibility to nearby amenities. Yet, such housing
often encourages car ownership. This type of gated community development demonstrates
a typical contemporary housing development pattern and urban landscape with a mixed
land-use (i.e. residential with some commercial and retail) and substantial provision of green
spaces and landscaped open spaces and facilities. The Floor Area Ratio (FAR) of this type of
housing often reaches 3.0 or even more, with a mixed combination of building and
landscaping pattern. The surface coverage (SC) is low but heights of buildings can reach up
to 34 floors. This housing model is also a remarkable example of housing transition from
traditional 6 to 8 storey housing (or even typical town housing) to dense blocks of mid-rise
and high-rise houses.
In analyzing spatial differentiation phenomenon in China, some authors (Min at al.,
2008) argue that gated community is one the three representatives’ gentrification of Chinese
cities (Min et al, 2013) and traffic congestion (Ren, 2013). Certainly, we can argue that gated
communities are gated and might bring some socio economic differentiation between the
urban habitants, however “gated” has been linked to the Chinese culture (it formed
occupation-and family/clan ties among the member of family and collectives) and actually
has been the result of new style preferences in the current housing market of China.
Discussion: China’s Urban Housing Typologies and Patterns

Figure 6 – A model of typical urban landscapes of the three studied urban housing typologies in China; left:
low-rise and dense ViCs; middle: 6-8 storey blocks of affordable housing; and right: mid-rise and high-rise
residential blocks of a gated community (Source: Authors’ own).

Basic Characteristics of three types of residential

ViCs AH GC

Space type Residential Residential Residential Commodity

-Old -1990s Housing
Traditional Former Subsidized Housing High-rise Apartments
Neighbourhood

Land Use Mixed- Liveable Single Mixed

Location Inner city historical District Inner city Old building Inner city District Gated
Community

Openness Open Semi-Gated Fully Gated

Project –Plan Demolition New-

Old-Demolish

Residents Low Income resident, such as Low –Middle Middle & High
rural migrants Income Class, privileged group

Quality & Conditions Good Quality Bad Quality Good Quality

Bad Conditions Bad Conditions Bod Condition
*Dense

Case Study Xiu Shui- Bianzhou Wei Yi Jing Cui Yuan

Table 1- Basic Characteristics of three types of residential

The growing demand of urban spatial restructuring has actually led a new socio-
spatial mosaic with the predominance of homogeneous mode resulting in a similar district
specialisation and zoning. Based on the context of several driving forces of housing changes
in China, this paper identified the three housing categories to shows the importance of this
phenomenon in Chinese cities. This study explored the physical transformation of Chinese
cities through the cases of ViCs, affordable housing and gated communities. While
distinctive in the socio-spatial patterns, demographics and location, their current spatial
forms are been replaced by the renewal urban projects. This shows that homogeneous
model (high rise buildings) has become the predominant housing pattern.
Although ViCs provide affordable accommodations for rural migrants and used to be
more liveable in many Chinese cities, the majority of existing planning approaches of ViCs
are based on a ‘redevelopment’ model; this means that it is often replaced by an extremely
high-density residential and commercial complex. Most of the old Affordable housing units
have also been redeveloped, and low-income residents have been dispersed and relocated
to peripheral areas. China’s gated communities are accepted more broadly by the local
governments, developers, and consumers with characteristics of semi-enclosed structures,
mixed land-use, economic homogeneity, social heterogeneity and strong management. At
the same time, this housing typology represents a spatial privatisation and resident
fragmentation with severe traffic problems. ViCs will be protected or demolished and
transform into high-rise buildings? If the second option will take place, it means that the
urbanisation goes against the traditional residential patterns? And since they are cannot
afford commodity houses what will happen to this poor community?
New AF housings are taking the common high-rise building form and clutters
patterns in the cities fringe, as the case of Beijing and Shenzhen show. By the contrary, old
AF housing buildings which are located in the cities center, and still play an important role in
the provision of housing to low-middle income families, are under the urban renewal trends
of urbanisation in China. In fat, at present, AF housing is become actually very rare.
As the homogeneous model shows, gated communities seem to be the general trend
in the urban landscape in China's cities, as a many other cities around the world, where
gentrification has become the common urban landscape. However, the problem is how to
keep different types of residences for different economic groups, and to avoid that gated
communities become the only housing pattern. By doing so, Chinese cities will be more
heterogeneous and will be able to integrate different socioeconomic groups, and the
provision of public housing for each family can be guaranteed.
Although homogenous neighborhoods have despaired during the 1990s, it has
emerged in Chinese cities, but with different form and Challenge. This model has profound
implications for the form and structure of China’s cities.
 First, it presents the contradictions and challenges of the government on housing
inequality patterns in the urban housing reform.
Second, ViCs and AF are linked in terms of housing provision access. ViCs is a
consequence of lack of public housing for rural migrants and low income families. Therefore,
the predominance of this model has tremendous implications on the crucial issue of access
to affordable housing.
Finally, the three studied urban housing patterns of Chinese cities reveal not only the
complexity of urban inequalities in three different housing contexts. But it also has
consequences on social integration. The predominance of a homogeneous model in Chinese
cities indicates the difficult to integrate different socio-economic groups, since they
affordable housing are being limited and ViCs are expected to be demolished. Cities’
landscape must be heterogeneous in which different social groups can live together and
create the construction of mixed communities, then enrich the cities’ scenery.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank EPSRC, DfID and DECC for the provision of funding under the
‘Energy and International Development’ scheme. The funded project is titled ‘Energy and
Low-Income Housing in Tropical Housing’ and has a huge scope of housing and community
analysis in both rural and urban areas of China, Thailand, Tanzania and Uganda.

References
Chen, Mingxing. 2014. Examining spatial pattern and location choice of affordable
housing in Beijing, China: Developing a workable assessment framework. Urban Studies 1-
18.Datta, Ayona, 2011.
Fan, R., & Sun, W. 2009. Shenzhen Affordable Housing and Hong Kong Public Housing.
Comparison Cases study. Urban Development No. 6 (78-79).
Gaubatz, Piper. 1999. China’s Urban Transformation: Patterns and Processes of
Morphological Change in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Urban Studies, Vol. 36, No. 9,
1495 -1521.
He, S., Wu, F. 2006. Socio-spatial impacts of property-led redevelopment on China’s
urban neighbourhoods. Cities, Vol. 24 No. 3, p. 194-208.
Lin Y. L., De Meulder, B., Cai X., Hu, H., Lai Yani., 2014. Linking social housing provision for
rural migrants with the redevelopment of “villages in the city”: A case study of Beijing. Cities
40, 111-119.
Liu, Y., Zhu, X., Li, J. 2014. The Community Transformation and Residential Space
Restructuring Strategies of Small Towns in the Pearl River Delta Region. China City Planning
Review (Vol. 23, No. 3).
 Man, J. Y., Zheng, S. Q., Ren, R.R. 2011. Housing Policy and Housing Markets: Trends,
Patterns, and Affordability. In Man, Joyce Yanyun (Ed.), China's Housing Reform and
Outcomes (pp. 19-44). Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Cambridge, MA, USA.
Madrazo, B., & Van K. R. 2012. Explaining divided cities in China. Cities Geoforum 43
(2012) 158–168.
Mangurian, R., & Ray, M. A. (2010) Rural urbanism: thriving under the radar—Beijing’s
villages in the city, in: G. A. Wilkins (Ed.) Distributed Urbanism: Cities after Google Earth, pp.
21–41. London: Routledge.
Meulder, B., & Lin, Y. 2012. A conceptual framework for the strategic urban project
approach for the sustainable redevelopment of “villages in the city” in Guangzhou. Habitat
International 36, 380-387.
Miao P. (2003), Deserted streets in a jammed town: the gated community in Chinese
cities and its solution, Journal of Urban Design, Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 45–66.
Min, Z., Lin K., Huang, Y. 2013. Planners, Vol. 12 No. 29 (116-120).
Ren, Xuefei. 2013. Urban China. Polity Press, Cambridge.
Schoon, A., & Altrock, U. 2014. Concede informality. Scopes of informal urban
restructuring in the Pearl River Delta. Habitat International 43, 214-220.
Song, W., & Wu, Q. 2010. Gentrification and Residential Differentiation in Nanjing, China.
China Geographic Science, 20 (6) 568-576.
Tomba, Luigi. 2005. Residential space and collective interest formation in Beijing’ housing
disputes. The China Quarterly 184: 934-51.
Wang, Y. P. 2011. Recent Housing Reform Practice in Chinese Cities: Social and Spatial
Implications. In Man, Joyce Yanyun (Ed.), China's Housing Reform and Outcomes (pp. 19-44).
Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Cambridge, MA, USA.
Wei, X., & Zhu, X. 2009. China Gated Communities: The negative social effects of Social
differentiation. Planners Vol. 11, No. 25 (83-86).
Zacharias, J., & Tang, Y. 2010. Restructuring and repositioning Shenzhen, China’s new
mega city. Progress in Planning, 73 (4), 209-249.
Zhao, W. & Ge J. 2014. Dual Institutional structure and housing inequality in transitional
urban China. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 37 (24-41).
Zou, Yonghua. 2014. Contradictions in China’s affordable housing policy: Goals vs.
structure. Habitat International 41 (8-16).