ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates how Chinese middle-class homeowners are different from their western counterparts, as well as in what way different groups of Chinese middle-class homeowners are different from one another. The housing history of gated-community residents before and after the housing reform has shown the formation of China’s two housing middle classes—those who are working “within the system,” and those “outside the system”—through their advantaged access to housing resources. The formation of the two groups of housing middle classes in urban China suggests that private-home ownership is only a partial outcome of housing consumption and the inequalities produced through homeownership do not lie solely at the point of consumption. And the new patterns of unequal access to housing resources significantly contribute to social-stratification mechanisms in urban China today.
