基于广州实证的后改革时代中国城市住房权问题

Housing rights in post-reform urban China:A case study of housing differentiation and justice in Guangzhou, China

社会公正是当前地理学的一个热点也是传统研究课题。住房问题往往是社会公正研究和实践的重点案例。中国住房制度改革之后,中国住房拥有率及人均住房面积均大幅度提高。然而在住房分配的过程中,不平等和不公正现象时有发生。如何区别平均和公正,如何看待中国住房改革中的社会公平与不公共存的现象,是了解中国新城市现象的一个重要途径。本文从近期西方政治学和地理学关于住房权(housing rights)、社会公正以及城市权利等文献的讨论出发,通过在广州的实证研究,运用结构方程模型和Pratt指数对涉及住房权主要方面的住房分异的发生途径及其公正性进行综合分析。实证研究说明在住房分配领域,存在着制度因素延续下来所导致的分异。一些制度因素已经转化为市场因素,直接或间接影响个人居住条件和住房所有权的获得,并通过后者进一步影响住房分异。与此同时,纯粹市场因素的影响则相对薄弱。上述结论有助于了解当前中国城市住房权的核心问题,认识社会公正的发展前景,以及探寻减少社会不公正的制度利器。

Sociospatial justice is a long- standing theme in geography. This paper presents a new, integrated analytical framework for interpreting housing rights, housing differentiation and housing justice in post- reform China. It makes both methodological and empirical contributions to the literature related to the right to the city and urban China geography.Methodologically, the proposed framework employs latest methods of structural equation modeling（SEM） to test complex structural relationships among different processes of housing differentiation, and uses a strategy inspired by the Pratt index of relative importance to obtain quantitative scores of justice from causal factors according to their contribution to the outcome of housing differentiation. Empirically, this paper applies the proposed framework in a case study of Guangzhou using first hand survey data collected in 2009. The case study has tested two well- conceived but rarely tested hypotheses, including the successive effects of institutional bias and the mediating role of housing tenure in the process of housing differentiation. Moreover, it provides a quantitative portrayal of institutional（in） justice, which had not been realized in the past in spite of its wide recognition. With these contributions, this paper hopes to shed new light on how to bridge the socio- political and empirical traditions in urban geographical studies about China, a crucial step for Chinese geographers to engage in studies of social justice in China.