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Commencing in the 1990s, market reforms, high rates of urban growth and dissolution of public-subsidized housing created cumulatively a speculative property boom in Beijing. Economic housing was meant to provide affordable housing to low and middle income residents. But with the state earnest in using property market to promote GDP growth, political commitments were weakened and resources allocated went scarce. Non-target middle class “free riders” were also let into economic housing by developers to generate higher profit. The paper investigates the causes of misallocation of economic housing in Beijing. A housing survey was conducted to look into the competing interests in two starkly contrasted economic housing clusters — inner city resettlement and middle-class neighbourhoods. This paper aims to address the importance of balancing the growth-led policy with social equity and redistribution of public resources. An excessive emphasis of the former would deprive the latter of social justice and more equitable distribution. Short-term and longer term solutions are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims to provide a complete picture of the spatial distribution of industries in China, a country which is presently undergoing a transition from a planned economy to a market economy. It also seeks to explore the reasons behind that distribution. We employ the negative exponential function to analyze the spatial distribution of 57 economic sectors in Beijing. Comparison of the preferred location of each sector can reveal the overall industrial spatial pattern, which functions as a spatial reflection of the influence of the government and the market on economic activities. The findings of the study suggest that the governmental force is more powerful than the market force in the urban core, although the overall spatial distribution of industries is found to comply with the laws of the market economy. The power of the government and the market also shape the industrial spatial pattern in other Chinese cities, in ways that are similar to the case of Beijing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]