Urban Poverty, Housing and Social Change in China

Urban reform in China has dramatically changed the socialist urban landscapes and the economy is one of the most dynamic systems. However, economic reform has had a very uneven effect on urban population. While the living standard of a significant proportion of urban residents has improved, a sizeable group of households has been left behind and became a new class - the urban poor. There is a close association between poverty and housing in transitional societies. Along with job security, housing was the most important element of the socialist welfare system. Housing privatisation therefore has far-reaching social and economic implications. While urban economic reform and the associated unemployment problems have attracted some attention, the linkage between urban poverty and housing has been largely overlooked until now. The major concern of this book is about societies in transition and the associated problem of urban poverty. Under this broad theme, the book aims to analyse the socialand economic changes brought forward in Chinese cities by the country's on-going reform programme. It focuses particularly on the problems of urban poverty and low-income urban communities found in large Chinese cities

Ya Ping Wang is a Reader at Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh and has previously taught at Shaanxi Teachers University in Xi'an.