School District Houses
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Dark humor abounds as dream of home ownership fades in China’s big cities
The explosive price increases in China's housing market in the past year have made people less interested in predicting when the bubble will burst, and begin to accept and mock the unbelievably high prices. "I will want to divorce you only when the stocks I've bought recoup," he said. Upon hearing this, she felt warmth, knowing they would be together for all time. "I will marry you once the house prices fall," he said. That broke her heart. She knew he was determined to break up. Bittersweet jokes like this have flooded Chinese cyberspace and people's social media accounts since housing prices in Chinese cities skyrocketed - once again - in the past year. National Bureau of Statistics figures show that housing prices in most cities around the country continued to increase in August, with some cities surging by more than 40 percent over the last year. A few residential communities have even seen their prices double as panicked home buyers scramble to the market for fear their chance to buy is now or never. This round of price increase apparently beat most people's expectations. A much anticipated price fall seems like a myth. People have stopped discussing how the government should rein in unchained prices or predicting when the bubble will burst, but instead begun to accept the fact that the prices have risen to levels beyond most people's reach. Even if the increase will slow or reverse a bit, as long as the market doesn't crumble, prices are still at unreasonable levels. Some simple math will show that one person earning an average per capita income in Shenzhen, South China's Guangdong Province, will have to work 50 years without spending a penny in order to buy an average-sized apartment in the city. A Beijinger surnamed Zhang sold his courtyard house near the Drum Tower 30 years ago and left for good to the US. He worked hard for his American Dream to learn English and deliver food. After being robbed seven times, he managed to make $1 million, and with the money he came back to China for retirement, only to find the house he once sold now costs 80 million yuan ($12 million). Versions of this joke are popular because many people find the scenario easy to believe. Bay or cry As economists worry the disproportionate price surge in property will drain financing for the country's development, ordinary people are feeling the sting of high prices in their daily life. Potential housing purchasers, mostly the urban middle class, are hit the hardest, not only because of the fast shrinking affordability of housing, but also, as some observers say, because of a reemerging class struggle, based on whether one owns a property or not, a reinforcement of Karl Marx's classical theory about the haves and have-nots. Housing in China is closely related to resources, and property is bound together with the social welfare system. Owning a property is necessary for one to enjoy local social services. "School district houses" are particularly sought after as they provide access to a city's best schools without the need for skullduggery. Beijing's school district houses, mostly in Xicheng and northwestern Haidian districts, could be more than twice the city's average housing prices. Only better off families can possibly afford such homes and enjoy the best education. As another realistic joke goes, in the past only wealthy people sent their kids to study overseas, but now only the poor do. Uneven access to education passes down through generations and consolidates the established social class. This obstructs inter-class flow and society becomes rigid. The chance for lower-class social groups to rise in the social hierarchy becomes slimmer. The only people left with a better job than real estate agents are emigration agents, some say. No prospects The real estate market is increasingly becoming a tool for making money rather than finding a residence, and observers are worried this will inevitably undermine social fairness. It has been significantly more difficult for young people, starting from scratch in big cities, to realize the dream of buying a home compared with older generations. Before 2008, in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai, hard work could be expected to lead to home ownership. The cities developed quickly and provided abundant opportunities for new graduates and young people coming from other places. Many of them were able to afford a deposit to buy an apartment after several years of work and make the city their home. Now that housing prices are easily seven or eight times the prices of eight years ago, the chance of buying a home is quickly vanishing. Breaking down the demographics, people born in the 1960s and 70s mostly bought homes before prices took off. For the 1980s generation, who began working in the 2000s, some people bought homes and others could not. People born in the 1990s and in the new millennium are the most unfortunate, blogger Liu Chang wrote. Even though many of them have managed to make more than 100,000 yuan per year, without help from their parents, paying for a deposit to buy a home in the big cities is virtually out of the question. In Beijing and Shanghai, average second-hand properties now costs more than 50,000 yuan per square meter. In the face of the price irrationality, people who have bought at least one property feel relieved and hope the price increase continue and expand their nominal wealth, while those who hesitated and missed the boat only wish to spear the bubble. An observer going with the name Murong Suifeng wrote online that a "chain of disdain" among three classes of city dwellers has formed in China's big cities, like the food chain in the wild. Chain of disdain On the top of the chain are the carefree aboriginals. In Beijing this group consists of the hutong clan and the "compound clan," who are mainly the offspring of people working for Party and government institutions. They have long been living a better life than the majority. The hutong people are not as carefree as the compound clan. With the fast expansion of Beijing, the old hutong, or historic neighborhoods in the center of town, have either become valuable cultural heritage sites, which can't be turned into money, or are at risk of being seized for redevelopment, putting the residents at risk of having to move to the suburbs. Until that happens, these people can have a comfortable life, barely feeling the stress of living in a metropolis. This group can look down on the second category, mortgage-paying "house slaves." Distinct from the aboriginals, these are migrants working in big cities like Beijing. They are well-educated, have a decent job and good background. Though they can't afford a house by themselves, their family can at least help dealing with a down payment. But they need to pay back house loans, and a big proportion of their income goes to the bank. The increasing rise of house prices makes them believe, as long as they have a house, their prosperity is guaranteed. Their children may even become aboriginals. The rising of price of their homes also gives them a sense of security and the courage to spend their money on other things. Although disdained by the aboriginals, they will at least have their own homes after several decades of struggle. The bottom of the chain is the Ant Tribe with no housing. This group of people, also migrants to cities, live in rented humble abodes, and share housing with others. They are at the base of the social pyramid. Increasing house prices brings them many problems, but not as much as one might think, because the level of rent right now is much lower than the cost of paying a mortgage on a similar home . This group of people are regarded as impoverished in first-tier cities. The rising of real estate prices touches every raw nerve of them. (But if simply looking at their equity, they are quite rich.) These three groups of people form a chain of disdain, aboriginals looking down upon newcomers, and people with homes looking down on those without. With home prices skyrocketing, the gap between the three groups is growing bigger. People on the top rung not only live a carefree life but also enjoy the delight of looking down upon others. But in the third group, the quality of their life is deteriorating. Their chance of squeezing into the mid-level has become minimal. This is the reality of life in first-tier cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, among others, and represents today's social polarization. When people are categorized not according to their ability or future, but on their house, the value system of society is in danger of crumbling.
Buying houses for schools
By Li Lin Beijing parents purchasing homes in key districts to qualify for better education As she walked along Lumicang Hutong, a filthy alley in Beijing's Dongcheng district, 33-year-old Li Xin (pseudonym) was shocked that such shabby houses populated such a central area in Beijing. The walls were peeling, and the ground was dirty and bumpy. There was a rusty gas stove as well as cooking supplies placed in the open air, which gave off a faint odor. She also had to bend over to steer clear of drying underwear and shoes hanging haphazardly on the clothesline. Eventually she reached her destination, a 5-square-meter room hidden in the corner of the small courtyard home, after she had turned more than five times along the narrow alley. The courtyard home had been rebuilt numerous times since it was first built in 1944, and the less than 100-square-meter building had at least 20 separate rooms, each very small, shabby and without any independent bathroom or central heating facilities. In 2009, just after getting married, Li and her husband bought a 130-square-meter apartment and decorated it in the Lishuiqiao area, Changping district. The price was about 9,000 yuan ($1,469) per square meter. But now they will buy the 5-square-meter room in the alley at a price of 1.35 million yuan ($220,390). This means they are spending 270,000 yuan ($44,078) per square meter. "We have to do this for our son," said Li. "Only with a registered house in this primary school district can our son's hukou (household registration permit) be moved here, thus allowing him to enrol in this school." Shabby lifestyle The primary school Li was referring to is the Shijia Primary School, considered one of the top ten among about 1,500 primary schools in Beijing. In April the Beijing Municipal Education Commission issued a rule, which stated that enrolment for primary schools should be based entirely on the student's address and the proximity to the school, instead of some students being able to attend because their parents work in certain sponsor enterprises or public institutions affiliated with the schools. As a result, all primary schools can only enroll children whose hukou are registered in nearby residential communities. "So my husband and I are going to buy a small room in the nearby hutong and move our son's hukou here to enable him to be enrolled in the Shijia Primary School," said Li. "If my son can not go to a good primary school, then he won't be able to go to a good junior high school, or a good high school, and it won't be a good university, which will finally ruin his life!" Although Li's son is only 4 years old, Li is buying the expensive, shabby hutong room to save a spot for him two years later at the Shijia Primary School. "If we do not buy now, it will be more expensive as more and more parents are buying these kinds of 'enrollment houses.' The earlier, the cheaper," said Li. "But we will absolutely not really live here." Niu Shaopei, a real estate agent working at the Dengshikou branch of the Homelink Real Estate Agency, told Metropolitan that the houses below or around ten square meters were created by private house dealers. "Private house dealers have been targeting the bungalows in the old hutong near the key primary schools," said Niu. "Originally one siheyuan (courtyard housing facility) had only one property ownership certificate, but these private dealers often divided one sihehuan into more than ten separate rooms and applied for independent property ownership certificates for each of the divided sections." Each of these tiny properties only enables one hukou-holding person to attend the school. "According to the hukou policy, each property below 10 square meters in size can only serve one child," said Chen Qianru, Niu's colleague. "If you have two children waiting to be enrolled, you have to buy a larger bungalow." According to the current policies on Beijing's real estate market, people with a Beijing hukou can only buy two properties in residential buildings, but face no home-purchase restriction on purchasing bungalows. "Almost all private dealers of school district bungalows are Beijing locals with plenty of money, because although there is no purchase restriction on bungalows, the purchaser must have a Beijing hukou and pay in cash at one time, as when buying bungalows there are no loans available," said Niu. "As a result they do not lack money and are not rushing to sell their properties, instead they try to raise the price." The price of the bungalows has been rising since 2012, said Niu. "About two years ago the price was only about 50,000 yuan [per square meter], but the policy change has made parents and private dealers more and more crazy about the school district houses." "Last year we sold one on a hutong," said Chen. "It was just a narrow space at the entrance of an old siheyuan in Fuxue Hutong (in the Shijia Primary School district). It was less than 4 square meters, not even enough room to hold a single bed, and it's in the open air, but it was sold for about 1.2 million yuan." Education investment Of course, not all the houses in these school districts are tiny hovels and the prices of better homes are also skyrocketing. In the Dongnan Residential Community, Haidian district, which belongs to the school district of the Zhongguancun No.1 Primary School, there are very few old hutong. But the average price of property has reached 80,000 yuan per square meter. "I just called for 5.8 million for this 73-square-meter house, which is a relatively low price at less than 80,000 yuan per square meter," said the current property owner, a middle-aged man surnamed Wang. In the face of sky-high prices, Chinese parents have not hesitated to buy. According to Ai Yin, an agent working at the Zhongguancun branch of the 5i5j Real Estate Agency, they had seen a rush to purchase school district houses since October. "We made about 100 deals in two months on school district houses, and now only have five houses available for sale in the whole school district of the Zhongguancun No.1 Primary School," said Ai. "Yesterday I made a deal for an 80-square-meter house worth more than 7 million yuan, and it was bought by a couple for their daughter's enrolment at the Zhongguancun No.1 Primary School." Certain schools, such as the Shijia Primary School, do not have limits on how long the children's hukou have to have been registered in the school district. "Almost all families buying bungalows do not really live there," said Chen. "They choose to immediately sell the property to get the money back, and probably earn some extra money, and they do it with private dealers, which just pushes prices higher and higher." According to Xiong Bingqi, deputy director of the 21st Century Education Development Research Institute, school district properties have become a dual investment. "First it is an education investment; second it is a property investment," said Xiong in a Xinmin Weekly report in September. No way out? Guo Yongfeng, a 35-year-old businessman, came to Beijing from Hunan Province in 2003. After years of hard work, he married a Beijing local and bought a house to settle down in for his wife and son. However, he still found life in Beijing much more difficult than he had imagined. Guo and his wife have spent more than 2 million yuan on their home in Shunyi district, and they want their son to go to a top level primary school, which means they have to buy a house and spend more. Guo's wife favors the purchase, but Guo does not. "Although many friends and workmates are doing so, I think it is insane," said Guo. "Both the policy and the market are not logical, which are driving Chinese parents crazy, and I do not think that is a healthy environment for the development of primary schools and for children's growth." Guo said parents like him have two choices. First, they can send the children to international schools which accept Chinese students, where excellent and different educational resources are available. "Even if the tuition is 300,000 yuan per year for ten years' study, it is still much cheaper than buying a house," said Guo. "But we would have to worry about our son again afterwards, and think about which kind of high school he should attend, after all, it is a totally different system compared with Chinese public schools." Second, the parents can choose to send their children back to their hometowns. "My sister is working in Shanghai and her son was sent home back to Hunan province, where the boy can attend a municipal key primary school and junior high school," added Guo. "He can go back to Shanghai for high school and directly attend the gaokao, and we are considering this way, but both my wife and I are reluctant to be apart from our son." This problem is fundamentally due to the importance society places on education, and the lack of decent education resources, Xiong said. "People should be treated equally, no matter which school they attended. Otherwise people will remain focused on exam scores and the intense competition for limited educational resources will remain." "I know it is insane to spend so much on another house, which we do not need, but we have to, and thousands of parents have done that," said Li.
Police shooting of teen highlights the 2 sides of Columbus
By Associated Press COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) – Long stuck in the shadow of sister cities Cleveland and Cincinnati, Columbus is Ohio’s city on the rise. Cranes dot the skyline, rising above blocks of new downtown condos. The population has been booming for years, while the numbers in the state’s other major cities have fallen or remained steady. But as it grows, Columbus also faces problems. Some neighborhoods struggle with poverty and crime. A quarter of the city’s youth lives in poverty. And in poor areas there’s tension over the city’s policing, now heightened after a white officer fatally shot a 13-year-old black boy. Police say Tyre King pulled a realistic-looking BB gun from his waistband after running from police who were investigating a reported robbery. An officer shot him multiple times; Tyre died at a hospital. In the wake of the shooting, Mayor Andrew Ginther assured residents that Columbus is the “safest big city in America.” Yet some residents of rougher neighborhoods disagree. “We’re tired of Mayor Andrew Ginther lying about our city being safe when it’s not safe for all of us,” said Amber Evans, lead organizer with the People’s Justice Project. “It’s just not the case. It’s not the case for us – so we ask the question, ‘Safety for who? Safety for whom? Justice for who?” Evans joined dozens of other mourners at a Thursday vigil for Tyre, where some expressed frustration with police over what they said was an unnecessary killing. Tyre’s death was the 13th police shooting in Columbus this year, with five fatalities. Although Ginther offered no statistics on the city’s safety, its crime rates are mostly unremarkable. Columbus ranks 21st in homicides among major U.S. cities, and 27th for violent crime, according to 2014 FBI data. The homicide rate in America’s 15th-largest city has hovered below 100 in recent years. With an estimated 850,000 residents, Columbus is similar in population to Charlotte and Indianapolis, and its metropolitan area tops 2 million. While Cleveland’s population has dropped recently, Columbus’ continues to boom – it has grown 8 percent since the 2010 census and almost 20 percent since 2000. Still, Columbus is sometimes discounted by outsiders as a sleepy Midwestern city or a glorified college town, home of Ohio State University. Among its nicknames: Cowtown. But city leaders have fought to shed that reputation, building up the city’s core and branding it as a vibrant hub for arts and cuisine. By financial measures, the city has also fared well. In July, its unemployment rate was 4 percent, compared to 5.1 nationwide. The average personal income was $28,000 in 2011, ranking No. 3 among 15 similarly sized cities, according to a study by Community Research Partners, a nonprofit research group in Columbus. But those figures can cloak deep disparities drawn along lines of geography and race, said Lynnette Cook, executive director of the nonprofit. In Franklin County, of which Columbus is the seat, black infants are more than twice as likely to die before their first birthday as white infants. The city’s school district houses one of Ohio’s best public elementary schools in a wealthier corner of the city, but closer to where Tyre was shot, it also houses one of the worst. “It’s almost like folks in different neighborhoods are having completely different life experiences based on the ZIP code they live in,” Cook said. In poor neighborhoods, often with higher concentrations of black residents, some say there’s also a difference in how they’re treated by police. “In Columbus, with our police department, we don’t believe that the protection is extended as much in black and brown communities as much as it is elsewhere,” said Evans, the organizer who spoke at Tyre’s vigil. “We don’t feel that safety is on the side of black and brown residents.” The Rev. Vincent Golden Sr., whose Baptist church is on the city’s east side, said his community is tired of hearing that Columbus is safe. “I’ll be honest, there are times when I walk out of my church, I am afraid,” Golden said, adding that there are more than 60 abandoned houses within a four-block radius of his church. “To me, that brings no pride to the community.” Even before King’s death, tensions had been mounting over the city’s policing. In June, two plainclothes Columbus officers opened fire on 23-year-old Henry Green, who was black, after they said he ignored commands to drop his gun and fired on them. Green was shot seven times, with a chest wound causing his death. Green’s family and a friend with him say police didn’t identify themselves. The officers say they did. The shooting has caused consternation in the community, but no violent protests. In a poor neighborhood on the city’s west side, Lisa Boggs describes a friendlier rapport with police. Involved with the neighborhood block watch for nearly 20 years, she said police have helped curb crime and combat drugs in the area. “Although no city is a safe city right now in these times we live in, I feel like our leaders and police officers are working to make it safer,” she said. At Tyre’s vigil, Marvin Johnson said it’s time for Columbus police to review their policies on when it’s appropriate to use force. But Johnson, who owns a company that transports cadavers, also encouraged parents to play a stronger role in their children’s lives. “If you do not stand up and hold accountable our young people and the city, every single day, then I will continue to drive them – heartbroken – to the funeral home.”
Knowledge Graph
Examples
1 In Tioga, the school district houses teachers in nine trailers from the Federal Emergency Management Agency behind its high school.
2 In Chinese newspapers, news about “extremely high-priced school district housing” has been reported frequently and it is very common that parents buy school district houses in order to send their children to good schools.
3 Iola Independent School District houses two exceptional campuses of learning at the elementary and high school level.