TRADING CITY FOR SPACE
 

Living conditions have steadily improved in Shanghai. Since 1990, housing space per capita has more than doubled to reach almost 15 square meters in 2003. Some improvements are also noticeable in the quality of the urban environment, with the area of urban parks and woods multiplying almost sevenfold, covering over 35% of the urbanised area of Shanghai. Despite these improvements in living conditions however, nearly half of households experience overcrowding, and a further 16% suffer from severe overcrowding.

As metropolitan growth continues, high-rise buildings fill the dense city centre and new towns are constructed along peripheral ring roads. Yet, in a pattern where concentration predominates over dispersal, close to half of Shanghai's population lives in an area smaller than 5% of its total land surface. Urban densities average slightly over 40,000 residents per square kilometre in the city's four core districts and reach a peak of 760 persons per hectare in Huangpu's central neighbourhood of Old West Gate, just south of the People's Square. It is interesting to note, however, that the structural densification of the city centre is occurring at the same time that population densities have decreased in this area, following development imperatives towards increasing the quantity of living space per resident.

Household size has been decreasing over time and small households now comprise a considerable proportion of the population. The massive changes to Shanghai's housing conditions have not been without social friction. Speculation in the housing market in both development and resale, mostly at the luxury end of market (symptomatic of increasing inequality in terms of housing consumption) has prompted government actions to increase interest rates and discourage non-occupant ownership. Conflicts over development rights have flared at the city's periphery, where farmers seek to convert agricultural land into profitable housing for both migrant workers and the wealthy. In central neighbourhoods, policies of slum clearance and the accompanying displacement of residents to more suburban areas have been met by some community protest.

At the same time, new social structures, such as residents' management committees in high rise towers, are evolving to address the particular conditions of new housing typologies. The quality of life in Shanghai's high density neighbourhoods is now an issue to address, as are the impacts of densification and massive vertical growth on the physical tissue of the urban core. What factors lead residents to remain in the congested city centre rather than moving to modern suburban housing complexes? How does the provision of housing relate to Shanghai's employment sectors? While the creation of peripheral new towns may be the most efficient model of metropolitan growth, what alternatives might be considered, such as the expansion of the core by generating a high density belt around it?