¹ Chao, Kang, “Industrialization and Urban Housing in Communist China,” Journal of Asian Studies, XXV, No. 3 (05 1966), pp. 381–396CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hollister, William W., “Trends in Capital Formation in Communist China,” An Economic Profile of Communist China (Washington: U.S. Printing Office, 1967), pp. 129–131Google Scholar.

² The exception is 1957 which does not fit in with the national trend for housing construction as reported in Ten Great Years (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1960), p. 217Google Scholar; The figure for 1957 is a residual, but the figures for 1956 and 1958 from which it is derived are quoted in several sources and a low figure does make good sense in the general context of 1957, as is discussed in Part II.

³ I-hsiang, Chao, “Research into Shanghai's Residential Accommodation Potential,” Hsueh-shu Yueh-k'an (The Journal of Learning) (Shanghai), No. 4, 1958Google Scholar.

⁴ An explanation of this distinction is to be found in Chien-ming K'o CM Tzu-tien (A Simple Scientific and Technical Dictionary) (Shanghai: Scientific and Technical Publishing House, 1962), p. 607Google Scholar.

⁵ Derived from data in New China Semi-Monthly (HHPYK), No. 24, 1957Google Scholar; op. cit. in Table I and Chao I-hsiang, op. cit.

⁶ The figure of 54 per cent, is from Chao I-hsiang, op. cit. The predominance of modern style accommodation is suggested by the New China News Agency report, op. cit., Table I. Also by Shanghai feng Hu Ch'u te Pien-chien, op. cit. in Table I, p. 79. The number of storeys on buildings on new estates is discussed in note 30. The figure of 80 per cent, is derived from data given to me in 1966. This data claimed that over one million persons had been housed in new accommodation since 1949 and that the total area of this accommodation was 8·2 million square metres. Each household was reported as being allowed 30 square metres, the average size of household in Shanghai being 4·7. These figures imply a coefficient of over 90 per cent, which seems most improbable. One possibility is that the figures are entirely bogus. However, the total construction figures make sense in the context of the earlier figures quoted in published sources, and the standard of 30 square metres per family is given some credibility by the fact that this is exactly the figure quoted as the standard for new housing in Canton. (See: Kuang-chou Jih-pao (Canton Daily), June 4, 1957.) It seems to the writer that the most likely explanation of the figures is that the average size of family in new housing is higher than that in old. It would seem very reasonable that a family fortunate enough to get new housing would have an additional relative to live with it. It is noteworthy that the size of families on the two modern estates visited by the writer was in fact greater than 4·7. On the assumption that the average size of family in new housing is 5·5 persons, and that “over one million” means 1·2 million persons, a coefficient of 80 per cent, is derived.

⁷ “The City's Accommodation Problem,” Chieh-fang Jih-pao (Liberation Daily) (Shanghai), 08 13, 1956Google Scholar.

⁸ Wang reported that 28 million yuan had been spent on repair work in the public sector since 1949. The public sector, up to the socialisation campaign of January 1956, accounted for 33·1 out of 51·8 million square metres. This is derived in the following way: the total of 51·8 million square metres is given by Wang in his speech; private accommodation before January 1956 must have consisted of the 8 million square metres taken over, phis that portion of the residential sector still in private hands after 1956. This amounted to 60 per cent, of all residential accommodation. The public sector is therefore taken to be the total minus these two categories. The references are: Chao I-hsiang, op. cit., and “Make a Great Effort to Repair Accommodation, Distinguishing Degrees of Urgency in each Case,” Hsin-wen Pao (HWP) (The Daily News) (Shanghai), 04 3, 1957Google Scholar.

If we now assume that expenditure at the same level was made in respect of private accommodation, we have a total of 38 million yuan for expenditure in all sectors on all types of building. This assumption about the private sector is open to question, particularly since there are numerous reports made at this time describing the bad state of repair of private accommodation. (See for example Wen Hui Pao, April 3, 1957, op. cit. The national scale of the problem is indicated in HHPYK, No. 7, 1957, “Our Country's Present Urban Housing Problem,” pp. 71–73. These reports were at least partly an attempt by the authorities to transfer some of the odium for the housing situation to landlords and capitalists. Wang himself affirmed that private repair work was carried out “through inspection and prodding” by the Bureau and it does not seem conceivable that persons in private residential accommodation did not carry out at least a modicum of repair work. Wang's figure for requirements was 46 million yuan and the text suggests that this figure related to 40 per cent, of the total accommodation stock. Data for repair work up to mid-1957 is contained in: “Devise All Methods to Solve the Accommodation Problem.” HWP, September 4, 1957.

Since the data above all refer to different points of time in 1956 and 1957, they have been adjusted in the light of all the information available, so that all estimates refer to the end of 1957.

⁹ The valuation of the stock of accommodation at the end of 1957 is based on data for the old stock plus data for new construction of non-residential accommodation, high quality housing, “simple” and “ordinary” housing. (Estimated from data in Liberation Daily, August 13, 1956, op. cit. and Chao I-hsiang, op. cit.). The old stock has been valued at 25 yuan per square metre. High quality housing costs are based on data in “Further Progress in Improving the Welfare and Living Conditions of the Broad Masses of the Staff, Workers and Citizens,” Liberation Daily, September 28, 1956. Other costs are taken from a survey into construction costs in Nanking in “Research into the Costs of Civil Accommodation Construction in Nanking Municipality,” T'ung-chi Kung-tso (Statistical Work), No. 3, 1958Google Scholar.

The figure of 25 yuan per square metre for the old stock may seem low. It should be recalled, however, that a substantial proportion of this was very primitive and decrepit. According to HHPYK, 1957, No. 7, op. cit., 20 per cent of the Shanghai population was still living in shack areas in 1957. A description of these in pre-war times is to be found in: Lamson, H. D. “The Problem of Housing for Workers in China,” Chinese Economic Journal, 08 1932Google Scholar; An article in 1956 described the shack areas as “swept by the wind and lit by the moon,” “Develop the Potential of Shanghai's Textile Industry,” Liberation Daily, August 13, 1956.

The initial value of the stock comes out at 1,150 million yuan and the terminal value (1957), at 1,568 million yuan. Average annual depreciation (repair expenditures plus estimated additional repair requirements) are 22 million yuan and average repair expenditures are 6·2 million yuan

¹⁰ “Why Must shanghai's Population be Gradually Reduced?” HWP, August 10, 1955, has a population figure for April 1955.

¹¹ Chao I-bsiang, op. cit., has a figure of 3 square metres. A figure of 2 square metres is used in: “Urban Planning and the Problem of Fully Utilising the Old Industrial Cities,” Kuang-ming Jih-pao, July 2, 1956.

¹² Statistical Work, No. 3, 1958Google Scholar, op. cit.

¹³ “The Change in the Standard of Living of Shanghai Workers over 27 years,” Statistical Work, No. 13, 1957Google Scholar; The difference between the data for 1929–30 and 1956 are to be explained mainly in terms of the different samples used for the two enquiries. The earlier enquiry included workers engaged in transport and other services, most of whom would have been engaged in non-mechanised activities on a self-employed basis. Such persons would tend to have lower incomes than those engaged in modern industrial activities. The 1956 sample, however, consisted entirely of industrial workers. Apart from having higher incomes, such persons would also have a much greater chance of being in state housing at below average rents. Thus on two counts a sample which included all types of worker would tend to have a higher rent burden than one including industrial factory workers only. A substantial proportion of the pre-war Shanghai population was outside the factory sector and this was still true in 1956. For example, prior to the socialisation campaign of 1956 there were 391,000 persons engaged in private commerce. See “Concerning the Reform of Private Commerce and Market Supply Work,” Liberation Daily, August 17, 1956. None of this argument implies that incomes of all categories of workers may not have risen in real terms between 1929–30 and 1956.

¹⁴ Speech at the Shanghai People's Congress, Liberation Daily, August 23, 1956.

¹⁵ For example the population fell from 7 millions in April 1955 to 6·08 millions in May 1956 and then rose again to 6·8 millions by July 1957. See “The Shanghai Population Already Exceeds 6·8 Millions,” Wen Hui Pao, July 23, 1957.

¹⁶ Liberation Daily, August 13, 1956, op. cit., and “Why is the Shanghai Accommodation Problem so Difficult to Solve?” Liberation Daily, July 23, 1956.

¹⁷ Chao I-hsiang, op. cit. A slightly higher figure for the share of the public sector is given in HWP, September 4, 1957.

¹⁸ Jen-min Jih-pao (People's Daily), June 12, 1956 and June 26, 1956 respectively.

¹⁹ “Great Enthusiasm again Stirred up in the Land and Building Management Bureau,” HWP, November 5, 1957.

²⁰ “Report concerning the City's 1955 Budget Out-Turns and the 1956 Budget Estimate,” HWP, March 9, 1956.

²¹ “Draft Report on the Out-Turns of the 1956 Budget and the Draft Budget for 1957,” HWP, August 28, 1957.

²² “Shanghai Drafts and Approves an Outline Seven Year Plan,” Wen Hui Pao, January 6, 1957.

²³ Compendium of Speeches and Documents of the Fourth National People's Congress of the Chinese People's Republic (in Chinese) (Peking: People's Publishing House, 1957), pp. 74 and 123Google Scholar.

²⁴ Liberation Daily, August 13, 1956.

²⁵ Liberation Daily, August 23, 1956.

²⁶ “The East China Textile Management Bureau and its Factories Gradually Improve Worker and Staff Living Conditions,” Liberation Daily, October 31, 1956.

^26a “Shanghai Municipality People's Congress Work Report,” HWP, June 14, 1959.

²⁷ Liberation Daily, August 23, 1956.

²⁸ Speech at the Shanghai People's Congress reported in Liberation Daily, August 11, 1956.

²⁹ Wen Hui Pao, January 6, 1957.

³⁰ Speech at the National People's Congress, op. cit., note 23, p. 1181. Estates I visited in 1965 and 1966 were five storeys high, as are the buildings in photographs of workers' housing such as that on the cover of Shanghai P'eng Hu Ch'u te Pien Ch'ien.

³¹ HWP, September 4, 1957. The rising tempo of re-arrangement work is also mentioned by Wang in his speech, Liberation Daily, August 13, 1956.

³² The hsia-fang movement was a government campaign to persuade cadres and other workers to go and live permanently in the countryside, from where many of them had recently migrated. Articles in Liberation Daily, February 16, 1957, give details of administrative economies initiated at this time. “140,000 cadres hsia-fanged,” HWP, November 30, 1957, gives an indication of the scale of the hsia-fang movement in early 1957.

³³ Liberation Daily, August 13, 1956. From 1957, the whole of the housing appropriation was included in the investment budgets of enterprises. The wisdom of this reform might have been questioned on the basis of the experience of the Canton Bureau which complained that enterprises had, in effect, mis-appropriated housing funds allocated to them. See “The City's Accommodation Problem,” Canton Daily, November 27, 1956.

³⁴ Two good articles on this subject are: “A discussion of Rent and Accommodation Problems,” Hsueh Hsi (Study), 1957, No. 24Google Scholar; “An Enquiry into the Nature of Socialist Rent and the Problem of Estimating Rent Standards,” Hsueh-shu Yueh-k'an, 1957, No. 10Google Scholar.

³⁵ HWP, September 4, 1957. Four experts who gave a joint speech at the 1957 National People's Congress argued strongly against the policy of handing over housing control to enterprises and government organisations. They claimed that the rents fixed by such bodies “served consumption not production,” op. cit., note 23, pp. 1148–1155.

³⁶ The First Five-Year Plan for the Development of the National Economy of the People's Republic of China 1953–1957 (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1956), pp. 40–42Google Scholar has an account of the Plan's policy towards regional distribution of industry. It should be noted that Manchurian cities such as Harbin, which were allowed to grow rapidly, were also “old industrial cities,” in the sense that they had experienced appreciable industrialization under Japanese occupation.

³⁷ This section is based on the following selection of articles from the Canton Daily: “The City's Accommodation Problem,” November 27, 1956; “An explanation of Canton City's Draft Seven-Year Plan for the Development of the National Economy,” November 22, 1956; “On the Basis of Developing Production Gradually Improve the People's Livelihood and Welfare,” September 30, 1957; “Canton City's Draft Seven-Year Plan to Develop the National Economy,” July 3, 1956; “The Phenomenon of Severe Irrationality in Accommodation Use Still Persists,” January 14, 1957; “Recognise That There are Many Problems in Urban Construction Work,” May 25, 1957; “We Must Correctly Solve the Dormitory Problems of Construction Workers,” June 4, 1957; “We Must Have Rooms to Live In,” May 21, 1957.

³⁶ “Concerning the City's Accommodation Problem,” Canton Daily, November 27, 1956.

³⁹ Canton Daily, May 25, 1957. The critic referred to a claim of a 30 per cent, increase in residential housing since 1949. I have not been able to locate any claim of this magnitude. However, it is true that the failure to consistently distinguish different types of accommodation is often misleading. For example, a speech by the Mayor of Canton (Canton Daily, September 30, 1957), does appear to include a deliberate attempt to overstate the growth of the housing stock by reference to construction of all types of accommodation. The degree of overstatement is exactly the same as that referred to by the Hundred Flowers critic.

⁴⁰ Throughout the whole period since 1949 there has in theory been a fairly consistent policy of protecting the right to private ownership of residential property. For example, immediately after the establishment of Communist government in Peking, in 1949, there were demands that property be shared out and rents abolished. The authorities dismissed this talk as “rumours” and published regulations guaranteeing the property rights of all classes and upholding the validity of reasonable rent contracts. (See Shao-ch'i, Liu and others, Urban Policies for New Democracy (Hong Kong: New Democracy Publishing House, 1949)Google Scholar, Chap. 9.) Property rights in respect of housing were confirmed as recently as 1962 in an article in Cheng-fa Yen-chiu (Legal and Political Research), No. 3, 1962, pp. 17–22Google Scholar.

The problem has been that the spirit and character of political campaigns were frequently contrary to this position and property rights, which were in theory still protected, have often been violated. This was particularly true in 1956. Urban political activists, quite understandably, could not distinguish between the rights of house owners and those of the owners of factories and other forms of property which were freely taken over in 1956. An example of this is “They Ought Not to Have Confiscated My House,” Kirin Daily, November 23, 1956.

⁴¹ “Fix Accommodation Standards, Find Accommodation Potential,” Ch'ang-chun Daily, September 21, 1957.

⁴² “Can the Dormitory Shortage be Solved Quickly?: an Examination of the Housing Situation of Workers and Staff in Anshan,” HHPYK, No. 11, 1957, p. 123Google Scholar; And “Why must the Urban Population be Reduced?” Kung-jen Jih-pao (Workers' Daily) (Peking), 01 4, 1958Google Scholar.

⁴³ HHPYK, No. 7, 1957, op. cit.

⁴⁴ Workers' Daily, January 4, 1958.

⁴⁵ HHPYK, No. 11, 1957, op. cit. “Views on some Problems in Urban Construction,” Liaoning Daily, May 7, 1957.

⁴⁶ Ts'ao Yen-hsing, Ch'eng-shih Ch'ien-she yü Kuo-chia Kung-yeh-hua {Urban Construction and China's National Industrialization) (Peking: 1954)Google Scholar.

⁴⁷ For Anshan see: “Solve the Workers and Staff Accommodation Problem,” HHPYK, No. 15, 1956, p. 182, and for Harbin, data are from “The Rapid Construction Development of My City,” Harbin Daily, August 4, 1957.

⁴⁸ HHPYK, No. 11, 1957, op. cit.

⁴⁹ Harbin Daily, August 4, 1957.

⁵⁰ The Central Budget does sometimes contain data on housing but it is never comprehensive. For example the 1956 Budget contained some data for planned housing construction by centrally controlled enterprises. Local budgets also contain a few figures but most of the funds for housing construction are included in the total investment appropriations. In Shanghai all funds were handled in this way from 1957 onwards. See HWP, August 28, 1957.

⁵¹ Construction data from Ten Great Years, op. cit., p. 217. The cost figure of yuan per square metre is that used in Chao I-hsiang's estimates of prospective housing costs. On the basis of cost experience 1949 to 1956, this would seem to be a low estimate. But taking into account the effect on costs of the economy drive in construction work which began in 1957, it is probably not unreasonable.

⁵² Harbin Daily, August 4, 1957.

⁵³ Although drastic re-allocation did not take place it is important to note the extent to which planners were forced to raise housing expenditure beyond the anticipated level during the First Five-Year Plan. The Plan allocated funds for 46 million square metres, but the final output was 94–54 million square metres. See First Five-Year Plan, op. cit., p. 196 and: Ten Great Years, op. cit., p. 217.

⁵⁴ “More than 60 Units Relinquish Accommodation,” People's Daily, May 21, 1958.

⁵⁵ “Peking's Urban Construction is Unprecedented in Scale and Speed,” Ta Kung Pao (Peking), 07 25, 1957Google Scholar.

⁵⁶ “State Council Temporary Regulations Concerning Holidays and Wage Treatment for Workers and Staff Returning Home to Visit Families, Draft.” HHPYK, No. 24, 1957, p. 95Google Scholar.

⁵⁷ “Strengthen Urban Planning Work and Lower Costs in Urban Construction,” People's Daily, November 23, 1955.

⁵⁸ The Bureau of Urban Construction was replaced by a new Ministry in 1956. The new Ministry was given import new supervisory functions in urban construction work. See Fa Kuei Hui Pien (Collected Laws and Regulations), 01 to 06 1956 (Peking: Law Publishing House), p. 79 and pp. 106–112Google Scholar.

⁵⁹ “National Civil Architectural Design Exhibition Opens in Peking,” Wen Hui Pao, February 12, 1957. And “The Great Change in our Country's Appearance,” Wen Hui Pao, February 4, 1957. “Urban Construction Must Fit in with the Principle of Economy,” People's Daily, May 24, 1957.

⁶⁰ “Vice-Premier Po I-po Discusses How to Implement Rectification in Basic Construction Work.” HHPYK, No. 11, 1957, p. 90Google Scholar; Also see “On The Basis of Conscientiously Implementing Rectification, Master the Skills of Economical Construction,” Ch'eng-shih Ch'ien-she (Urban Construction), July 14, 1957.