Analyzing the private rental housing market in Shanghai with open data

The failure of public housing policies and skyrocketing housing prices have made the private rental sector an increasingly important part of the housing system in Chinese metropolises. However, due to the lack of data, the private rental housing market remains poorly understood. By integrating open data, this paper comprehensively examines the spatial patterns and determinants of residential rents in Shanghai at the intra-urban level. We find that high rents are concentrated heavily in the inner-city area, which not only forces low-income families to live in the suburbs, where rents are still relatively affordable, but also makes housing costs a heavy burden to non-native young professionals. The results of spatial regressions suggest that the rental housing market in Shanghai is shaped by regional level factors such as job opportunities, salary levels, and the size of the “floating” population, and neighborhood level indicators like public transport facilities and service amenities. Such factors are differentiated across space. In the areas with better infrastructure, the roles of high salaries and attractive amenities are highly significant. In suburban districts, the presence of a larger “floating” population, better access to metro stations, sharing bikes, bus stops, and shopping facilities tend to raise rents. These patterns indicate that the geographical inequality of infrastructures, spatially imbalanced job accessibility, and institutions that make housing unaffordable have reinforced the rental and commuting burdens on economically disadvantaged groups, which also undermines their social mobility. Thus, our study suggests that the Chinese government should devote more effort to decentralize high-paying jobs, improve employment accessibility in urban peripheries and villages, as well as reform public housing policies and provide more public housing to make rental housing more affordable.