A burden or a tool? Rationalizing public housing provision in Chinese cities

Public housing, a crucial component of the welfare state, is often viewed as an economic burden. We confront this conventional view and provide an alternative understanding of public housing in mixed economies. Through the lens of China, we conduct case studies and investigate the rationales of public housing provision in two high-profile, industrializing and deindustrializing cities – Chongqing and Shenzhen, respectively. We find that, despite variegated local conditions, Chinese municipal governments strategically provide public housing as an instrument of city development. We construct an open-ended framework that forges intricate links among cost-benefit considerations. It systematizes hypotheses that assemble the patterns of dynamic relationships among constituents of local decision-making, mediating the dimensions of development stage, time and space. The framework facilitates a new and illuminating way of conceptualizing policy rationales and of explaining variations in local programmes. Our proposition complements theories of the mixed economy of welfare and invites further elaboration.