Urban Housing Development in the 1990s

Abstract

The preceding two chapters have show how the housing boom of the late 1970s and the early 1980s increased the urban housing stock dramatically but failed to solve housing shortage problems. New house building was not sufficient to meet the expanded demand from the ever increasing urban population. At the beginning of the 1990s, the Ministry of Construction estimated that the urban population (non-agricultural) would reach 260 million by the end of 1995 and 320 million by the year 2000. In order to respond to this the Ministry proposed a ten year Development Plan for housing which also included the Eighth Five Year Plan period (1991–5). The strategies proposed were to speed up housing development; promote housing commercialization; continue housing and land use reform; promote comprehensive urban development; improve the housing and real estate market; and strengthen housing estate management and maintenance services after privatization.