Resolved: The United States ought to guarantee the right to housing
Serious pressure on housing authority
Download 95.74 Kb.
|
- Navigate this page:
- Government control on the housing management is not economically viable. China proves
Serious pressure on housing authoritySo, 2015. (Raymond, Journalist for ChinaDaily Hong Kong, “Housing Fund a sensible decision,” ChinaDaily Hong Kong (5 January)). Hong Kong has a serious housing problem. Solving it is now a major government priority. According to the government's recently announced Long-Term Housing Strategy, 290,000 public housing units, both public rental housing and home ownership scheme units, will be built. Although this 290,000 number is still believed by many to be insufficient, it has almost twice the amount currently being produced. On average, the current number of public housing units being built annually is around 15,000 units. This sharp increase in housing production obviously exerts considerable financial pressure on the Housing Authority (HA). Hong Kong has a serious housing problem. Solving it is now a major government priority. According to the government's recently announced Long-Term Housing Strategy, 290,000 public housing units, both public rental housing and home ownership scheme units, will be built. Although this 290,000 number is still believed by many to be insufficient, it has almost twice the amount currently being produced. On average, the current number of public housing units being built annually is around 15,000 units. This sharp increase in housing production obviously exerts considerable financial pressure on the Housing Authority (HA). Government control on the housing management is not economically viable. China provesYang and Chen 2014 (Zan, real estate economist and Jie, Economics professor at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics. “Housing Affordability and Housing Policy in Urban China”. Springer. 2014 The welfare housing system achieved a kind of success in the rapid expansion of the public housing sector in the 1950s–1960s. However, the entirely administrative planning and management of the housing market instead of market force causes housing supply to deviate from housing demand. Housing as ‘‘welfare’’ goods financed solely by the state through budgetary funding placed a huge financial burden on the government. During that period, the annual income from rents was about RMB1 billion, whereas the government spent an average of RMB25 billion on new housing construction and another RMB10 billion on maintenance (Cui 1991). This inevitably resulted in low investment in housing and a continuous housing shortage. For instance, the living area per capita in urban China decreased from 4.5 m2 in the early 1950s to 3.6 m2 in the 1970s (Liu 1998). In addition, the tight link between work units and housing services also led to a low level of labour mobility (World Bank 1992; Bian and Logan 1996) and gender equality between men and women (World Bank 1992, 1993). Download 95.74 Kb. Share with your friends:
|