The decreasing housing utilization efficiency in China’s cities

‘Ghost cities’ are a well-known phenomenon of (almost) complete vacancy of urban living space in China. Underutilization of urban living space, however, is far more common than complete vacancy. Here we propose the concept of housing utilization efficiency (HUE) and present the following findings: (1) the overall HUE in China’s highly urbanized areas decreased from 84% in 2010 to 78% in 2020, (2) the HUE in central, old urban areas was generally lower than that in the outer layers of urban areas and declined more from 2010 to 2020 and (3) four development types are found to represent different patterns of urban population movement, urban housing growth and HUE change at the intraurban level. These findings provide comprehensive insight into the discrepancies between urban housing supply and demand in China and highlight their connections to the country’s particular urbanization characteristics and policies, which are crucial for future housing development and planning. This study proposes a new concept, housing utilization efficiency (HUE), to assess urban housing supply and demand. It found that the overall HUE in China has decreased since 2010, coupled with an over-supply of housing in most cities and processes of depopulation in others.