The housing spatial structures in Guangzhou urban built-up area and their causes' analysis

Abstract

Urban housing spatial structure can be viewed as the substantial expression of urban development history. The housing spatial structure of Guangzhou city is typical in that it lies on the front of opening zone and, furthermore, it is one of the three largest cities in China. Basing on the housing data of Guangzhou's 5th Census, the paper employs factor and cluster methods to analyze 5 key factors taking from 40 variables of 77 sub-districts (F70%). They are housing constructed years, housing sources, kitchen equipments, toilet equipments and housing floors. The results of the factor scores help to divide the houses in urban built-up area of Guangzhou city into four types with different features: Ⅰ) Pre-establishment Housing Area (in which houses constructed before the founding of P. R. China); Ⅱ) Government Welfare Housing Area (Ⅱa: in which houses constructed for public servant from the time of the founding of P. R. China to the Reform and Opening) and Enterprise Welfare Housing Area (Ⅱb: in which houses constructed for people serving public owned enterprises from the time of the founding of P. R. China to the Reform and Opening); Ⅲ) 1980s Housing Area (houses with relatively rough equipment constructed during the 1980s); Ⅳ) 1990s Housing Area, in which Commercial Houses (Ⅳa) and Privately Constructed Houses (Ⅳb) centralized. The results can be used to explain the formation mechanism of Guangzhou's housing spatial structure. 1) As a result of Guangzhou's development, housing spatial structure turns on concentric circles from inside to outside. The quality of houses in the former urban area (inside circles) is poorer than that in the outer because they are the origin of the city. Some underdeveloped villages were surrounded by built-up area with urban expansion, while some of them were developed apart from the urban. 2) City planning distorted the concentric circle structure. 3) City reconstruction changed the homogeneous situation of the former urban area. 4) Although the housing reform institute changed houses' tenure, their public-owned attribute has not been broken. 5) Outskirts of the city become the hot area of real estate development, which result in the highest ratio of commercial housing in the outside of the built-up area. As a conclusion, the paper deduces the structure mode of housing spatial structure in the large cities of China: The Pre-establishment Housing Area normally lies in the inner circle. The second circle is the Welfare Housing Area. The Commercial Housing Area mainly centralized in the 3rd circle, which surrounds those relatively underdeveloped villages originally far from urban built-up area and some special function area constructed in the culture and education areas in the 1980s. The broad suburban housing area and industrial area together formed the 4th circle.