Since the founding of modern China in 1949 up until the present, the national housing system has changed drastically. Originally, the PRC adopted a socialist residence system, confiscating private housing and allocating houses and properties through government bodies. This arguably peaked during the collectivisation movements of the era, before changing course in the late 1970s. Afterwards, a general trend of privatisation occurred in Chinese housing, fundamentally altering the nature of the domestic housing market.

This book tracks these changes in government policy and attitudes towards residential housing, as well as the trends of modernisation, urbanization, and development that contribute to shifts in living conditions and expectations of Chinese citizens. As well as mapping out specific policies and particular trends of the Chinese housing market, e.g., the destruction-regeneration model, the author also includes 25 real-life stories from his students’ personal experiences – a college project in which the students interviewed their parents and grandparents on every house they’d lived in since 1949. Any reader curious on the nature and change of Chinese residential housing can find answers in this book.

About the Authors
Yong He is a professor in the Department of Architecture, Zhejiang University. Born in 1971, he graduated from Xi’an University of Architecture and Technology with a bachelor’s and a master’s degree, and graduated from Zhejiang University with a PhD. He also studied at the Technische Universität München, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, etc. After graduation, he has been engaged in architectural design teaching, and related design practice and research on urban development and regional architecture.

Xiaoping Xie (*1980) is currently a senor principal research fellow at the Faculty of Architecture, Technische Universität Dresden. She conducts empirical and theoretical research on sustainable urban and regional development based on international comparative studies of various development issues, and focuses on the study of the socio-spatial complexity.