190613&14 - Housing in Urban China: Policies, Practices and Comparative Approaches

WORKSHOP "Housing in Urban China: Policies, Practices and Comparative Approaches" (PDF, 256 Ko)
Organization: Sciences Po, Centre for European Studies and Comparative Politics (CEE),Center for International Studies (CERI) & Urban School. Supported by the program Cities are back in town

13-14 June 2019, Sciences Po, Conference Room, 56 rue Jacob, 75006 Paris

 Contact: jeanlouis.rocca@sciencespo.fr & patrick.legales@sciencespo.fr

Since the end of the 1990s, housing has become a crucial issue in China. Moreover, the housing approach allows us to take into account a large array of challenges facing contemporary Chinese society. Housing industry is today one of main growth-driven economic sector. Homeowners have emerged as a new social category, having high level of living standards and high expectations. Real estate residences have completely reshaped the urban landscape, creating a new social geography. But problems have arisen. In sharp contrast with the past, large cities face gentrification process, leading to social polarization between upper class and underclass areas. Migrant workers meet more and more difficulties to find a place to stay, and social housing is an issue of growing concern for public policies. Because of the endless increase in real estate prices, the new generation is facing serious difficulty to have access to propriety but the older generations of homeowners expect prices will further increase. Heritage conservation and urban planning policies create difficulties between different levels of the administration.

As what is striking in this wide-ranging list of phenomena is that they are all (or have all been) experiencing by large cities in the world, it should certainly be fruitful to address these issues in a comparative perspective. Not only does the objective of the conference is to shed light to urban issues from the crucial point of view of housing but also to attempt analyzing these findings in the research frameworks developed by Sciences Po academics about different cities in the world. Accordingly, each speech about China is followed by a comment from a Sciences Po faculty or a recognized scholar on housing.

 

 

General Programme

Thursday, June 13

9-9.15 am: Welcome and Registration

9.15-9.30 am  Welcome Address:

• Florence Haegel (Sciences Po, CEE)
• Guillaume Plantin (Sciences Po, Department of Economics)

9.30-10 am: Introduction:

• Patrick Le Galès (Sciences Po, CEE & Urban School, CNRS)
• Jean‑Louis Rocca (Sciences Po, CERI)

10 am-12.30 pm: Session A: Housing in market socialist China: Assesments

• Rebecca Chiu (Hong Kong University), “Housing Governance in Socialist China’s Marketizing Economy”? 
• Zou Yonghua (Zhejiang University), “Paradigm Shifts of Housing Policy in China:Tug of War between Marketization and State Intervention”
• Yu Hai (Fudan University), “Political Ideology and Housing Policy in Socialist China”

• Discutant: Dominique Lorrain (Laboratoire LATTS, CNRS)

12:30-13.45 pm: Lunch Break

1.45-3.15 pm: Session B: Housing practices: generations and preferences

• Jean-Louis Rocca, “'homeowners' movement:from ownership to citizenship and... Political consensus”
• Sun Zhe (Shanghai University of Finance and Economics), “The Preference of Market Construction and Differentiated Renters’ Rights - a Field Study on the Rental Housing Market in Shanghai”

• Discutant: Margot Delon (Sciences Po, OSC)

15.15-15.30 pm: Coffee break

3.30-5.30 pm:  Session C: Homeowning practices / State practices

• Tian Chuanhao, Peng Ying, Wen Haizhen (Zhejiang University), “A Promotion of Education Quality 'Benefits' Whom: An Empirical Analysis of School Districts Adjustment in Hangzhou”
• Wang Mengqi (Duke University at Kushan), “Chasing wealth and brokering value: realtors and the 'rigid demand' as a class-based entitlement”

• Discutant: Francesco Findeisen (Sciences Po, CEE & MaxPo)

 

Friday, June 14

9-10.30 am: Session D: Informal practices and Housing perceptions

• He Shenjing (Hong Kong University), “Property Rights with Price Tags? Understanding China’s Informal Housing Market”
• Daniel Kübler (University of Zurich) and Dong Lisheng (University of Tartu, Estonia), “Habitat and Perceptions of Local Government: Evidence from a Population Survey in Western China”

• Discutant: Jean-Louis Rocca

10.30-10.45 am: Coffee Break

10.45 am-12:15 pm Session E: Chinese migrants in Paris/in Beijing

• Du Juan (Inalco), “Divided Space and Shared Room. Categorizing the Residential Space as Housing Access Strategy among Chinese Migrants in Paris Suburbs”
• Emmanuel Caron (EHESS), “Shared Housing in Beijing: Neighbor Relationships between the Established and the Outsiders in Shared Apartments, Urbanized Villages and Underground Housing”

• Discutant: Nordine Kireche

12.15-13.45 pm: Lunch Break

13.45-15:15 pm: Session F: Renovating old houses

• Françoise Ged (Cité de l'architecture): “Housing in Chinese Cities, through the Lens of Sino-French Cooperation Programs 2005-2018”
• Liu Ying, “Housing Renovation Process in Beijing: A Case Study”

• Discutant: Marco Cremaschi (Sciences Po, CEE)

15.15-15.30 pm: Coffee break

15:30-16:30 pm: Session G: Housing in Paris

• Nordine Kireche (Sciences Po, Urban School): “Public Policy on House Prices”
• Comments: Qin Bo, Rebecca Chiu

16.30 pm: Conclusions: Jean Louis Rocca & Patrick Le Galès

 

 

Pictures: @leungchopan & GuoZhongHua