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So long as one-third of urban residents are migrants without legal resident rights, urbanisation in China will remain incomplete, argues Youqin Huang.
China is in the midst of an urban revolution, with millions of migrants moving into cities every year. Since 2011, for the first time in history, more than half of China’s 1.3 billion population (690 million
people) are living in cities. Another 300-400 million are expected to be added to China's cities in the next 15-20 years. New Premier Li Keqiang recently proposed accelerating urbanisation in China, and said it was the “main driver” of China’s future economic growth.
Yet, China’s urban dream may be derailed by the lack of affordable housing in cities for the existing urban poor and the massive influx of migrants.
Until the 1990s, Chinese cities were dominated by welfare-oriented public rental housing provided by either the government or public employers. Severe housing shortages, residential crowding, and poor housing conditions were common problems in cities. Over the last two decades, Chinese cities have experienced an unprecedented housing privatisation, as the Chinese government has sold public rental housing at deeply discounted prices, encouraged developers to provide new
private housing, and ended public housing provisions.
With the influx of both domestic and international investment, there has been an unprecedented housing boom in Chinese cities. Between 2000 and 2010, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit, China constructed roughly twice the total number of houses currently in the UK, or about the same amount of houses that are in Japan.
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