Urban Slums in Security Housing in China
Zhang Tao, Ahmad Hariza B. Hashim, Jayum Anak Jawan
University Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Malaysia
As wealth gap is widening and the housing price increases tremendously in China, the living standard of urbanunderclass maintains relatively low level. Therefore, possessing a house is becoming more dificult than ever forthose urban poor strata Consequently, the poor are forced to settle in damp and . congested substandard housingwhere plagues, crimes and relegation of social regulations and morality are incidental with. Security housingsystem has been established in China, and its purport is to alleviate the housing plight of urban poor people. But inrcality, security housing is becoming a new form of urban slum. This paper aims to investigate the causes of thisphenomenon and provide some recommendations [n addition, this paper attempts to identify the characteristics ofcurrent security housing situation and to interpret the right to housing.
Keywords: sccurity housing. slum, a right to housing, causes
House plays a central role in life of every human being. It is to some extent a building block for a broadrealm of interrelated benefits, like job opportunities, good education, health, and tenure security. The commonnotion of the house is a refuge from the outside world, a desire to escape from other people and from socialinvolvement, the establishment of a place from which others could be excluded, and where consequently onecould truly be onself, in control, 'more of an individual', capable of loving, and fully human (Stone, 1993).However, as wealth gap is widening and the housing price increases tremendously in China, the livingstandard of urban underclass maintains relatively low level. The income of the top 10 percent of the richestChinese was 23 times that of the bottom 10 percent of in the country in 2007, as compared with the statistics in1998, when the gap was only 7.3 times (Chen, 2010). Therefore, possessing a house is becoming more difficultthan ever for those urban poor strata. Consequently, the poor are forced, to settle in damp and congestedsubstandard housing where plagues, crimes and relegation of social regulations and morality are incidental with.All these negative issues are undermining the social economic development and political stability.
Therefore, every member in any society shall enjoy a basic right to housing, and government ought tofulfil its responsibility to formulate relevant policy to guarantee its attainment. Having recognized its role inhousing development, government of China has formed its social security housing system in order to alleviatethe severity of living conditions of residents in urban areas and protect the basic rights of people, and hasestablished a housing security mechanism to solve the housing issues which mainly consist of affordablehousing system and low rent system.
To a large extent, housing security system is purported to improve the living conditions of poorpeopleand to accomplish the social justice. To eliminate the urban slums is one of the goals of this system. In reality,some affordable housing and low-rent housing are becoming the new urban slums.This paper intends: (1) toidentify the barriers which tend to make the affordable housing and low-rent housing become the new urbanslums; (2) to better understand the practice and cxperience of developed nations; and (3) to explore the differentaltemnatives and provide policy and legislative recommendations on urban slums in affordable and ow-renthousing.
The research methodology is mainly I centered onqualitative I approach. Documents are the sources ofresearch including the policies and regulations of housing security system of China and other nations. And thecomparative research is applied to distinguish the differences between China and other nations.
New Urban Slums in Social Security Housing Realms in China
Slum can be defined as a community which is inhabited by socially least advantaged people with poorliving conditions and sub standard housing and facilities. UN (2007) defined a slum as an area that combined tovarious extents the following characteristics:
(1) Inadequate access to safe water;
(2) Inadequate access to sanitation and other infrastructure;
(3)Poor structural quality of housing;
(4) Overcrowding;
(5) Insecure residential status.
Although a large amount of affordable housing and low-rent housing are built in outskirts of urban areas,these areas lack public service, such as school, hospital, transportation, park and shop. All these inconveniencesincrease living expenses of the low-income residents. In addition, the housing maintenance and management isvery deficient. Power failure and water leaking cannot be fixed promptly and burglary happens now and then.All these factors lead to an unstable and abnormal life for the residents. It backfires on the purpose and purportof social security housing. So, it is very important to rectify this problem through policy and law.
A Right to Housing
To understand the meaning of a right to housing, in-depth perceptions about the definition of right are veryimportant. However, up to now, there is no agreed and universal definition of the concept of right. Coleman (1998) defined the right as a legitimate claim. Some scholarsamp;apos; definitions put more emphasis on the powerassociated with right (Hart,1982;Kenna, 2005). Based on the statement of Zuckert (2002), rights were theultimate measuring stick for judgement. Pound (1958) focused on the relationship between rights and the lawwhile he defined the term right. He emphasized that rights were created before law and first, the law recognizedan interest, endowed a right to protect that interest and then create a duty protect that right. So, rights are thebasic normative standards
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