Slums were not uncommon in Chinese cities a few decades ago, from the precarious working class districts of 1930s Shanghai to the shanty towns of British-occupied Hong Kong in the 1950s onwards. How did China manage to develop in a way that decreased mass housing precarity? What are the structural reasons behind it?
I don’t know if you’ve ever been there, but i live there now for about a decade.
a lot of people own a house by default. at some point all the houses where people live were somehow given to them. then the values sky rocketed, or where their building got developed and the developer paid them out.
so families brought more than one house or prepared money for their kids to get a house, and the property market continued to grow.
On top of this, Chinese are more accustomed to living in what could be called extremely efficient housing. small apartments in big apartment blocks with 99% of what they need in life 10 minutes walk away.
I grew up in USSR, and it was a similar setup. Most people lived in big apartment blocks that were structured into microdistricts with all the necessities being within walking distance. I personally really liked that arrangement. It’s a really convenient way to live.
In my original comment I wasn’t wondering about the home ownership status of the middle class but rather what their lifestyle is life. As I mentioned earlier, in India most houses employ poor people to do their housework for them. Arrangements like this are founded on and upheld by grotesque levels of ineqality where the most poor people have no chance at education and upward mobility and have to resort to doing grunt work for others. It is a terrible system that has led to the rise in prevalence of apartheid style gated societies.
wealthy people employ an “ayi” to do house work or in some cases a “baomu” to be a nanny.
This is not popular for the money conscience middle class. they will hire a cleaner maybe a few days a month if they feel they can’t keep up, but a baomu is more for the upper classes and yeh, can be gross just like you can imagine.
I am foreign worker. and a single guy who travels a lot. so many times in my life I hired an ayi to come to my apartment and do cleaning maybe twice a week.
my last full time ayi, could barely read, her daughter had just left university and was working as a paralegal… would she retire because her daughter could afford to take care of her ? no way in he’ll, the culture doesn’t allow that until she’s too old to work.
I don’t know if you’ve ever been there, but i live there now for about a decade.
a lot of people own a house by default. at some point all the houses where people live were somehow given to them. then the values sky rocketed, or where their building got developed and the developer paid them out.
so families brought more than one house or prepared money for their kids to get a house, and the property market continued to grow.
On top of this, Chinese are more accustomed to living in what could be called extremely efficient housing. small apartments in big apartment blocks with 99% of what they need in life 10 minutes walk away.
I grew up in USSR, and it was a similar setup. Most people lived in big apartment blocks that were structured into microdistricts with all the necessities being within walking distance. I personally really liked that arrangement. It’s a really convenient way to live.
In my original comment I wasn’t wondering about the home ownership status of the middle class but rather what their lifestyle is life. As I mentioned earlier, in India most houses employ poor people to do their housework for them. Arrangements like this are founded on and upheld by grotesque levels of ineqality where the most poor people have no chance at education and upward mobility and have to resort to doing grunt work for others. It is a terrible system that has led to the rise in prevalence of apartheid style gated societies.
it is similar in Sri Lanka as well
wealthy people employ an “ayi” to do house work or in some cases a “baomu” to be a nanny.
This is not popular for the money conscience middle class. they will hire a cleaner maybe a few days a month if they feel they can’t keep up, but a baomu is more for the upper classes and yeh, can be gross just like you can imagine.
I am foreign worker. and a single guy who travels a lot. so many times in my life I hired an ayi to come to my apartment and do cleaning maybe twice a week.
my last full time ayi, could barely read, her daughter had just left university and was working as a paralegal… would she retire because her daughter could afford to take care of her ? no way in he’ll, the culture doesn’t allow that until she’s too old to work.
Thanks
From what I understand, this is also the way things work in Cuba.