Chinese urbanization and urban housing growth since the mid-1990s

This paper presents a comprehensive analysis on the situation of urbanization and urban housing growth since the mid 1990s in China. It calculates a much improved measurement of urbanization level in each province, which takes the unique characteristics of China's urban/rural composition into consideration. Relative to the CPI (Customer Price Index) deflator, the adjusted prices of urban commodity house in each province between 1995 and 2005 are computed in this article. The correlation analysis on urban commodity prices and the levels of urbanization in each province gives evidence to support the regional variation of urbanization and urban housing growth in China. The results suggest that the existing high urbanization levels but still boosting urban commodity housing prices in developed provinces make the serious challenge to local urban housing provision. In contrast, the moderately developed provinces benefit from the relatively even expansion of both urbanization and urban commodity housing prices.