CONSTRUCTION WORKER HOUSING IN SHANGHAI INVESTIGATIONS OF URBAN MOBILITY – PART 1

Exemplified by the frenzied race to complete the World Exposition before May 1^st, 2010, a substantial migrant worker force fuels the construction ambitions and pressing housing needs of Shanghai’s burgeoning population.  Consider for a moment estimates by the World Bank that suggest roughly half of the world's new building construction will take place in China between now and 2015 with more than 2 billion square meters of floor space will be built every year.  Shanghai, which forms the backdrop of this analysis, is anticipated to grow fiscally by as much as 8% in 2010. 

As a result of its thriving economy propelled not only by economic reform but also an ambitious national policy to transform the city into a major Asian financial centre, the Shanghai has groaned and spluttered over the last decade as a sprawling construction site. Driving a significant part of this unprecedented growth is ironically is a segment of the population not officially recognized as residents of the city itself. Rural migrant workers, accounting for 17% of Shanghai’s population, a figure growing annually, are concentrated in the most economically active group of between 15 and 34 years of age, and are responsible for the sheer manpower necessary to make the current economic boom happen. Not surprisingly, the enormity of the migrant population puts huge strains on infrastructure, resources and exacerbates a widening social divide rooted in dialect, education and wealth. A case in point, migrant workers are Non-Regular employed, making them a floating population or liudong renkou, and consequently do not benefit from the Public Housing Fund. 

The conceptual nature of migrant worker housing is an intriguing one in that it intersects a series of critical issues at the heart of China’s modernization.  Evaluating the dynamics of this migrant market force requires analysis of how the population is distributed spatially within a city.  According to UNESCO, Shanghai is a megalopolis that comprises the city itself (375 sq km), seven industrial satellite cities and some small outlying towns. An estimated 13.6 million people live here in an area of 6,340 sq km. Where in 1950 there were just over five million people, the population has more than doubled in fewer than 50 years and it is expected to top 18 million by 2015.

Accommodating large sub-populations in urban environments is a continuing challenge. In cities such as Shenzhen, Beijing and Shanghai, “urban villages” (chengzhongcun) were erected as a band-aid to a problem that resides at a national policy level. These euphemistically termed ghettos are characterized by high density, poor quality housing, limited infrastructure, poor safety and hygiene and social disorder.  The housing stock is temporary at best, always subject to pressures of redevelopment in the central business district, which in turn spurs development of the urban fringe.  Their locations are illustrated in the following demographic analysis by Wu Weiping, a specialist on urban challenges in China, who argues that the migrant labor force is a major influence on urban spatial development.  Migrant workers are, in Weiping’s view, a tangible market force that drives urban process which in turn affects growth and the implementation of urban policy.  Put another way, these workers articulate in a unique way the concept of social capital Jane Jacobs promoted in The Death and Life of Great American Cities. China’s endogenous process of urbanization which is dynamic, multi-dimensional and socio-spatial heightens the migrants’ dependency on friendship and kinship ties in the absence of earning power and property ownership rights.  Such networks are characterized by norms of trust and reciprocity which migrants use as social institutions when evaluating where to move and barriers to their mobility. (1)

Migrants disenfranchised state and mobility woes are rooted in the household registration system known as hukou.  Hukou, intended as a form of mobility control, identifies and limits Chinese to their place of origin unless they have special permission. Essentially the system is grounded in the differentiated ownership of urban and rural which is state and collectively owned respectively.  As such migrants are faced with a double divide in the urban housing sector; rural versus urban, and non-local versus local. More in depth information on the temporary permit system can be read about here. 

Type of housing and their availability in Urban China
Housing Types	Qualification	Availability to Migrants
		Own	Rent
Commodity housing	Anyone can purchase at market price.  However, only those with local urban hukou can qualify for bank mortgage loans.	Yes	Yes
Economic and comfortable   housing	Local urban residents with low or medium income can purchase at subsidized price.		Yes
Municipal public housing	Local urban tenants can purchase either ownership or use right, and trade units.  Other local urban residents can purchase either ownership or use right on secondary housing market.  Can be rented out with permit.		Yes
Work-unit public housing	Local urban tenants can purchase ownership from their work units and transfer on secondary housing market (with some exceptions).  Renting is possible with a permit.		Yes
Low-rent housing	For rental to local urban residents with lowest income, living on government allowances, and with per capita living area smaller than certain standards.		Yes
Resettlement housing	For local urban residents relocated from areas undergoing redevelopment		Yes
Private housing	Pre-1949 urban housing units passed on within family	Yes	Yes
Dormitory housing	Housing managed by local enterprises or institutions		Yes
Migrant housing complex	Housing managed by local government agencies for migrants		Yes

Migrants are unwittingly nomadic, their dictate being one of spatial mobility (income) and their desire one of upward mobility (social equity).   In Beijing and Shanghai, relocation occurs multiple times, sometimes as many as 10 times which is indicative of socio-spatial pressures in the city center.  Mobility in this sense qualifies both the source of work and a compromise of three key housing needs, namely access, amenity and tenure. The process of transition is understood to occur in two phases; initial settlement in the central city slum, followed by the intra-urban relocation to peripheral ad hoc housing.  It has been estimated that 36% of migrants in Shanghai live at or nearby their place of work. 

As a result inner-city slums are a major receptor of new migrants known as bridgeheaders who consider proximity to employment their highest priority, even at the expense of quality of housing. Urban enterprises recognizing this opportunity opted to provide housing for rural migrants to live in.  Currently, an estimated two-thirds of migrants live on the construction sites they work on. In distinction, the lack of land use planning and right to develop land means that local peasants can only build illegal apartments often of inferior quality on the urban fringe.  Improvements in income level provide one of the key incentives to move to peripheral locations where residential stability can be assured.  Over time, the informal shanties can be upgraded with more amenities and more permanent, substantial housing.  Bridgeheader becomes consolidator in the pursuit of upward social mobility.