Research On Effects Of Housing Mix Policies In European And American Cities And Its Implications To Chinese Cities

As a response to poverty concentration and its resulting serious social problems, housing mix has become the common trend of housing policies in American and European cities. The evolution of American and European cities' housing policies and its practice has important implications to address the growing residential differentiation, guide the healthy development of the city, and building a harmonious society.This article carding the evolution of public housing policies of American and European cities, analysis poverty concentration and serious social problems which suffered from public housing policies, summarize the taken housing mix policies and the research to this housing mix policies in American and European cities, discuss its implications to the development of Chinese cities. Based on the research of housing mix of American and Europe cities, this paper carding the development of residential differentiation of Chinese cities, analysis its evolution, discuss its developing trend, possible consequence and the inevitability of implementation of housing mix. Finally, according to national conditions of China, this paper summarize housing mix policies of American and European cities, analysis its applicability to Chinese cities, and give some proposals to the development of Chinese housing mix policies.The thought of housing mix begin with early industrialization, which was raised to avoid the spatial segregation between classes, the class conflict and social disharmony that brought by industrialization. But the initial stage of housing mix is just the experiment and ideas of social activists, and its further development was interrupted by World WarⅠand World WarⅡ. After World WarⅡ, in response to the acute housing shortage, European governments have assumed responsibility to restore and increase housing, housing mix was effective implemented in New City construction. After 1980, European countries have been solved the shortage of housing basically, but the market-oriented changes of public housing bring about the surplus of poverty in some countries, poverty concentration and its social problems come out gradually. After 1990, in response to poverty concentration, social mix revived, two major housing mix policies are the planning management of new development areas and the diversification of housing ownership. The main conclusions of European housing mix policies and its effects are as follows:housing mix policies give no or little improvement to social interaction, and almost no effect of so-called model effect; Significantly reduce the geographic concentration and suffered problems of vulnerable groups; bring material improvement to housing and living environment; Social mix does benefit the neighborhood's reputation, but may also produce tensions and conflicts; For the relationship between housing mix and personal income or employment, relatively research is very little in Europe, but some recent Swedish studies have shown that housing mix has positive impact to personal employment and income. Overall speaking, the implementation of housing mix policies in Europe is positive, but there are more controversial issues, some issues still need further study.The housing mix policy of U.S. is closely related to the development of public housing policies, its development has gone through four stages:1930-1940 BC, in response to the economic crisis, the construction of public housing started; 1950-early 1970 BC, the government built large-scale public housing, and mass concentration of disadvantaged groups here, coupled with a unique segregation and other factors, worsening social segregation, but as the sensitivity of racial discrimination in this period, the problem has not caused enough attention to the government and academia. 1970-1980 BC, a heavy financial burden and concerns about poverty concentration, made government public housing policy a strategic adjustment, from the direct participation to provide housing subsidies for needs to, the typical housing policy of this period is the Section 8 program and the Gautreaux program. After 1990, more research reveals the serious social problems of poverty concentration, such as rising crime rates, welfare dependence, therefore, the Parliament, in 1992 and 1994, passed through the HOPE VI program and MTO program respectively, and public housing policy entered a new stage of reducing poverty concentration and pursuit social harmony. There are systematic studies in U.S., to three housing mix policies'effect, the main conclusions are as follows:Section 8 program is currently the most widely used anti-poverty plan, its implementation has brought a sense of security and housing satisfaction were significantly improved, but has no obvious impact for employment opportunities and social interaction; HOPE VI program improve the living quality and living environment of revitalized neighborhood, bring the improvement of residential satisfaction and the reduction of crime rates, but there are also indigenous issues such as the number of public housing residents which move back is little; MTO program is only implemented in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York, and the program randomly assigned qualified families to three groups in order to obtain more convincing evidence of influence by way of experiment, and the studies have shown that MTO program has positive impact to children, but has no obvious affection to adult employment and income, and there is self-selection mechanism to protect the project objectives, and costs are too high, scale are too small, so that MTO program could not be extended to serve the whole Section 8 housing voucher program.China's urban housing development has gone through two periods. During the planned economy period, the unit system led the development of urban space and the basic living space within the city shows mainly high-density mixed old-fashioned settlements, such as alleys, lanes, outside of which are different occupational units. On the transition, economic factors gradually led the development of residential space, and residential differentiation has become increasingly evident. In China, evolution of residential space comes from its interaction between market factors and government factors, historical factors and the natural background is the foundation of its evolution, social factors have little effect, while the traffic technical factors play a role in the accelerator. The gradually evident spatial differentiation of urban living is bound to cause massive geographic concentration of vulnerable groups, the unfair space resources between classes, and the expansion between class contradictions, all of this may lead to serious social division and causing social instability. Therefore, China should be vigorously implementing housing mix policies.Considering the experience of Europe and America and the conditions of our country, China's housing policy should be to break the current hierarchical system, to avoid the housing policy accelerating differentiation of residential space; Careful implementation of affordable housing and low-rent housing system to avoid human factors exacerbate poverty concentration; Actively promoting the public housing policy guidance from the supply-oriented to demand-oriented; In China, as the stage of development and the unique socio-economic backgrounds, housing mix at this stage should focus on strengthening the planning and management of new developing areas.