Gimme Shelter: Housing in China

Fengjing (Shanghai)

Recently I had the good fortune to spend three weeks on a tour through China with my dad. It was a spectacular trip that included a wide variety of sites in and around six cities as well as a four-day cruise on the Yangtze. The history and culture are fascinating, and we enjoyed many marvels such as the Forbidden City, Great Wall, Terracotta Army and Three Gorges Dam. It's also interesting to see how China deals with housing given the enormous numbers of people living in even "small" cities.

One of the advantages of utilizing a tour company for a trip like this is you get to see and experience a great deal in a relatively short time period. Another advantage is the interesting "cultural connections" where we could meet local residents in their own homes, which were often comprised of just two or three small rooms. To be sure, many of these people were older and retired which, of course, gives them time to entertain inquisitive Americans. They seem generally happy with their homes because they are part of long-standing, tightly-woven communities. Many others, however, live in high rise apartment towers (a seemingly infinite number of which are currently being built) which provide more space and modern conveniences, but also sacrifice some of the community aspects. Many of the younger people with whom we spoke lived in these apartments with three or more generations of their family.

Of course, China is a very large and varied country, and I would expect to see different housing solutions in different regions. In the city of Hangzhou with its idyllic West Lake, we saw many multi-story, detached homes. After visiting a tea farm in the area, we had lunch with a farmer's family in one of these homes. The farmer indicated that he, like many others in the region, lived on one floor with his family and rented out the rooms on the floor above them. Whether it's an older two-room home in a village, an apartment in a ubiquitous high rise, or a multi-story home in prosperous Hangzhou, very little space is unused and idle in the Chinese home.