The resurgence of public housing provision in China: the Chongqing programme

Under Chinese neoliberalisation, restructuring of interactions between the market, the state and local governments has encouraged the latter to suppress public housing provision, resulting in serious housing problems for Chinese low-to-middle income households. Since 2007, the state has pursued a public housing revival, laying out various responsibilities for local governments to develop public housing. However, until recently, confronted with significant shortfalls in fiscal and land inputs, local authorities were largely unable to activate construction on an adequate scale. Nonetheless, between 2011 and 2013, the city of Chongqing applied a mode to supply public rental housing on a massive scale. This paper examines the administrative structure and reforms that have ensured the execution of the Chongqing programme. Findings show that specific political and economic incentives of the local officials have played important roles for realising the programme. Moreover, the municipality's control of land supply and the market have also enabled an efficient cooperation between governmental and market actors for public housing provision.