Courtesy : cardinalscholar.bsu.edu
Green affordable housing in china
Housing is the basic need of human beings. A house is not a shelter alone; it is a space to
live, a commodity, and an object that can represent the identity of the inhabitants, express
their lifestyle, and preserve the history of their lineage (Adesoji, David Jiboye, 2009). In
addition, Anirban Mostafa (2006) argues that housing is not only a commodity for
speculation or investment rather a home where the inhabitants can exercise their rights and
link themselves to the community and the community of the region in which it grows. I focus
on affordable housing or housing for people who can barely house themselves.
In our contemporary societies, affordable housing is a mechanism to provide housing for
low-income and mid-income families. While, most of the studies and current trends show the
state and market are the major forces in housing provision system. The people’s inability to
house themselves is a market related issue. However, according to the dominant ideology in
contemporary capitalist and socialist societies is that it is the state’s responsibility to help the
people who cannot provide their own housing to house themselves. Although, the private real
estate developers have begun to step into the “affordable housing business” (Claudine
Stuchell, 2008), people still think the same way. The direct provision of housing by the state
is a widely accepted idea in most countries including United States of America, the United
Kingdom, and China. I focus on China and the provision of housing on the state and local
government standpoints.
In China, the housing provision system shift from the old welfare provision system to a
market oriented system in 1990s. This is considered a big accomplishment from many
perspectives and is highly valued by many leading scholars of housing (Lan Deng 2009, Yves
Zenou 2011, Lee James 2000). The most popular state response to low income people’s
housing needs is either to directly provide housing, or gives some monetary assistance such
as housing provident fund, rent or home purchase subsidy, or tax relaxation. In reality,
however, the housing reform made housing less or not affordable in many cities. Shanghai is
one such example (Mostafa, 2006). Hence, most studies focus on how to create a more
reasonable formula or organize a model that could better distribute funds and houses. They
consider issues such as how to allocate the houses, how to subsidize the rent, how to reduce
the taxes, how to control the fund distribution and how to administer the developers.
However, the policies and actions in regards to affordable housing are dependent on a
central provision system. Proponents believe that this top-down approach can solve the
housing issues. It is being believed that the provision of houses can help the low income
people to solve their housing problems and improve their living standards. The foremost task
for government or state is to keep searching for funds, construct housing units and give these
to low income people.
There is, however, a missing part, which is neglected by the mainstream: both the
academics and decision makers have overlooked the possibility of encouraging people to
explore housing responses by themselves. There is a Chinese saying: “Give a man a fish. He
ends for a day.” In the context of low-income housing, it is better to let the need to figure out
the best options for housing rather than simply to give houses. In regard to moving
self-builders to public housing, John Turner (1976) criticizes the provision of housing by the
state and calls for it to be the supporter of the self-building process. In Housing by People,
Turner (1976, 3) addresses that “the issue of who decides and who does what for whom is a
question of how we house ourselves, how we learn, how we keep healthy.” Turner (1976)
also argues that there are two ways to provide housing: through a centrally administrative
system and through self-governing. The first one is a process determined by others, and the
other one is a self-determined process. These processes can create different results. Housing
and all other personal and locally specific services (related to housing) must be autonomous.
Instead of directly providing housing, in Turner’s view, the government should support the
housing processes of self-providers of housing, providing basic resources, especially legal
and administrative support. Mostafa (2006) also mentions that the state intervention should
focus on housing need and leave the home ownership to the housing market.
Affordable housing can also become an economic engine in some situations and lose its
original mission. Government officials use it to get the voters’ support, and the real estate
developers use it as part of their businesses. While, there is very little voice from the users’
standpoint. It is one of the reasons that make this paper important for future affordable
housing projects. City of Datong which located west of Beijing has one of the nationally
significant low-income housing projects. The shantytown reconstruction project in Datong is
an Economic Cheap Housing program funded project which aims to improve the living
condition of low-income families in Datong, particularly the coal miners and their families. It
plans to use five years to build multi-unit walk up apartment for about 100,000 families.
Affordable housing is related to people live and urban development. In addition, it is tightly
related to social equity and economic development. It also views affordable housing project
as a development process instead of a final physical product alone.
Most of the research on residential satisfaction is done in the social or behavioral science
fields which cover the relationship between residential satisfaction, mobility intentions, and
moving behavior(Lu 1998); and residential satisfaction in scattered-site public housing
(Varady and Preiser 1998). This paper, however, examines residential satisfaction not in a
context of solving a social problem, but to provide suggestions for the future affordable
housing project. Like Jiboye (2009), it believes, physical and structural adequacy is not
sufficient to measure a public housing project. Onibokun (1973) and Oladapo (2006) observe
that a dwelling that is adequate from the engineering or design standpoint may not be
adequate or satisfactory from the tenants’ point of view (Burgess 1978). Therefore, good
affordable housing also needs to cover social, behavioral, cultural and personal characteristic
aspects (Jiboye, 2009).
This paper is based on a case study in Datong, China. The project called Datong Coal
Mine Group two area redevelopment project (Datong mei kuang ji tuan liang qu gai zao gong
cheng), it is one of nationally acclaimed low-income housing projects. Datong is my
hometown, and this housing project is very close to my parents’ home. Therefore, I was
fortunate to know some detailed info and engage with this project from its beginning back to
- Based on the information I have, I did a survey study in 2010. The paper is more like a
follow up study; the most significant to me is to see what is there now after three years. What
are the changes there, what changed, and how; what did not change, and why.
The paper organizes in the following orders: First, it will evaluate whether this project
meets its own objectives. It will then assess its success from users’ standpoints. Finally, it will
develop some suggestions for future housing projects similar to this