Spatial Justice of a Chinese Metropolis: A Perspective on Housing Price-to-Income Ratios in Nanjing, China

Abstract

The housing price-to-income ratio is an important index for measuring the health of real estate, as well as detecting residents’ housing affordability and regional spatial justice. This paper considers 1833 residential districts in one main urban area and three secondary urban areas in Nanjing during the period 2009–2017 as research units. It also simulates and estimates the spatial distribution of the housing price-to-income ratio with the kriging interpolation method of geographic information system (GIS) geostatistical analysis and constructs a housing spatial justice model by using housing price, income, and housing price-to-income ratio. The research results prove that in the one main urban area and the three secondary urban areas considered, the housing price-to-income ratio tended on the whole to rise, presenting a core edge model of a progressive decrease from the Main Urban Area to the secondary urban areas spatially, with high-value areas centered around famous school districts and new town centers. The housing spatial justice degree presented a trend opposite to that of the housing price-to-income ratio pattern; it progressively decreased from the secondary urban areas to the Main Urban Area. Furthermore, the spatial justice degree tended to decrease in the new towns, in the periphery of the Main Urban Area, and in the secondary urban areas, and it tended to rise, relatively, in the inner urban areas. The enhancement of the housing price-to-income ratio has caused the urban housing spatial justice degree to become gradually imbalanced, gradually squeezing out the poor and vulnerable groups to urban fringe areas and leading to a phenomenon of middle class stratification. This has thus aroused social problems such as housing differentiation and class solidification, etc., and has caused inequality in social spaces. Tt is therefore urgently necessary to reflect on urban space production with the value and principle of spatial justice, which is also the only way to obtain urban sustainable development, in mind.

Spatiotemporal Evolution and Driving Forces of Sustainable Development of Urban Human Settlements in China for SDGs

“…Our study revealed that the housing-price-to-income ratio in the housing system is the main factor affecting the sustainable development of urban human settlements. This conclusion is consistent with that of Koetter (2021), Chen (2021), and Yin (2019), who believed that housing is one of the most important needs of urban residents [58], and the housingprice-to-income ratio will affect the process of urbanization [59] and the realization of urban spatial justice [60], which is of great significance to the sustainable development of urban human settlements. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct quantitative, dynamic, and refined analyses with respect to the housing-price-to-income ratio, new houses, and stock houses, and adhere to city-specific policies, especially in cities that have a low level of development in residential systems, such as Hegang, Heihe, Qitaihe, Longnan, and Zhongwei.…”

Investigation and Analysis of Dunhuang's Economic Issues

“…This is the formula of housing price-to-income ratio: HP refers to the sales price of each house, which is the product of the average unit area price of housing (AR), urban per person housing building (AF), and the population of the urban household(n); HI refers to the income of the citizens there, which is income of urban residents (AI) multiply the average population in every household(n). Generally, the higher the PIR is, the lower the residents' affordability, and the higher the degree of speculation demand or the possibility of a real estate bubble in the real estate market [5]. Internationally, the reasonable range of PIR is between 3 and 6.…”

“…In a study conducted by Li [8], it was shown that the China's excessive financial support for the real estate industry, for example the housing credit loan, is the cause of the increasing in the housing prices since people can borrow money from the bank to invest in the real estate. In 2019, Yin and Ma [5] provided an analysis of determining the affordability of the housing prices by using the Price-to-income ratio. As shown in Figure 5, Dunhuang's PIR first decreased and then increased.…”

Geospatial Analysis and Research on Social and Spatial Inequality of Compulsory Education: A Case Study of Hangzhou, China

“…As the basic unit of access to educational services, housing, which has both the geographical attribute of immovability and the social attribute of providing people with living space and corresponding eligibility for admission, provides us with another perspective to connect geographic territory and society [38].…”