A Roadmap For Housing Policy: Lessons of International Experience

Abstract

China’s housing policies face a significant transition. The country is rebalancing spatially with the emergence of massive clusters of cities, economically with labor-intensive manufacturing beyond its peak and the economic rebalancing away from investments and exports towards domestic demand, socially with the rise of a large urban middle-class with increasingly diverse preferences, and demographically with the ageing of the population. China’s urban population has quintupled over the past 40 years and is expected to reach one billion by 2030. Pressures for change continue to grow on the housing system. In spite of its large-scale and sometimes unique features, is there anything of value that Chinese housing policies could draw from the earlier experiences of other high-income economies?