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China Housing
Housing construction in towns and cities lagged behind urban
population growth. A 1978 survey of housing conditions in 192
cities found that their combined population had increased by 83
percent between 1949 and 1978, but housing floor space had only
grown by 46.7 percent. In 1978 there were only 3.6 square meters of
living space per inhabitant in these cities, a reduction of 0.9
square meter since 1949. To remedy this problem, construction of
modern urban housing became a top priority in the late 1970s, and
by the mid-1980s new high-rise apartment blocks and the tall cranes
used in their construction were ubiquitous features of large
cities. Some apartments in the new buildings had their own
lavatories, kitchens, and balconies, but others shared communal
facilities. Nearly all were of much higher quality than older
houses, many of which were built of mud bricks and lacked plumbing.
By 1981 living space in urban housing had increased to 5.3
square meters per person, and by 1985 the figure was 6.7 square
meters
(see Housing Construction
, ch. 7). Despite this progress,
scarcity of housing continued to be a major problem in the cities,
and many young married couples had to live with parents or make do
with a single room
(see Housing
, ch. 3).
Housing conditions in rural areas varied widely. During the
1960s and 1970s, thousands of production brigades built sturdy,
sanitary houses and apartments and in many cases entire new
villages. With the introduction of the responsibility system and
the more than doubling of rural incomes in the early 1980s, another
wave of housing construction took place as farm families moved
quickly to invest in their major personal assets--their homes--
which for the most part were privately owned. Many farm family
houses lacked running water, but virtually all had electricity and
were considerably more spacious than urban dwellings. In 1980 farm
homes averaged 9.4 square meters of living space per person, and by
1985 the figure had risen to 14.7 square meters. Despite extensive
construction of new housing, in poorer regions some farm families
still lived in traditional dwellings, such as mud-brick and thatch
houses or, in some regions, cave houses. Many of the nomadic
herders in Nei Monggol, Xinjiang, and Xizang (Tibet) autonomous
regions still lived in tents or felt yurts. In the Chang Jiang
Valley and in south China, some fishing and boat transportation
communities continued to live on their vessels
(see Minority Nationalities
, ch. 2).
Data as of July 1987
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