This paper analyzes the supply of and demand for urban housing in Mainland China. With regard to the supply of housing, five kinds of urban housing administrative methods performed in Mainland China since 1950 are discussed and evaluated. 3 As far as the demand side is concerned, two different things are estimated. The first is to ascertain the extent of the improvement in urban housing construction since December 1978, the time of the announcement of Mainland China’s housing construction reforms. At that time, it was estimated that 35.8% of the urban population were looking for houses. However, following seven years of rapid construction, the stock of urban housing increased and in 1985 only 26.6% of the people were looking for houses, the calculation being based on the old definition of the urban population. Nevertheless, in 1984, according to the new rules, the definition of urban population changed. It was discovered that towns had seen an increase since 1984 in comparison with previous years. Therefore, in 1985, there should in fact have been more than 26.6% of the urban housing population looking for houses.
If Mainland China expects to reach her goal of having an urban population that comprises 38% of the total national population (1.2 billion), and that each urban inhabitant has 8m2 of living space in the year 2000, the second problem is to estimate the level of construction that should be pursued after 1985 in order to attain this goal. There are two ways in which this objective can be achieved. One approach is to construct 317.13 million urban housing units each year from 1986 until the year 2000, which is as much as 2.44 times the 1985 level of construction. The other approach is to maintain an annual growth rate of urban housing construction of 10.5%, for the same period.
In addition, since Mainland China’s housing investment program since 1978 is quite different from what it was before the announcement of the reforms, the reasons why Mainland China changed her attitude toward housing construction in 1978 are also discussed. We conclude that it is her earnest pursuit of the goal of improved living standards by the year 2000 which has resulted in the rapid increase in new investment in housing construction since 1979.
