What is affordable housing in China? Evidence from Nanjing, China

Abstract

Affordable housing has been built in many countries all over the world. Yet the term ‘affordable housing’ is interpreted and defined very differently despite a shared focus on housing the less well-off population group. In China, ‘affordable housing’ was firstly introduced by the central government in 1991, and it quickly received enormous attention in both policy and practice in the past three decades. Although it is regarded as a direct approach of government intervention to assist lower income family housing needs, its official definition changed together with its development scales. Moreover, developers as well as local government officials have used their own definitions of ‘affordable housing’ in housing policies and projects at local level. Thus, affordable housing in China connotes a wide range of meanings even though there is a definition from the central government.