Housing Needs of Low-income Floating Population - In Case of Urban Villages Redevelopment Projects in Kunming, P.R. China

Abstract

This thesis will take the reader to the city of Kunming in the southwest of China, to visit the urban village, a type of Chinese urban settlement for low income dwellers. Here we will meet a group of people officially referred to as the floating population - one of the main urban poverty groups in China. More importantly, our aim is to understand the housing challenges faced by this group as a result of the implementation of the redevelopment projects of urban villages in China. As with many stories nowadays relating to fast growing Asian cities, the informal urban low-income settlement is threatened by demolition. The urban villages in the city of Kunming share this fate. What is worse for the low-income floating population in the urban villages, most of whom are actually rural-urban migrants, is that they have nowhere else to live except for these urban villages, because of their low-income and due to the lack of public housing. Using the examples of three urban villages in Kunming and through context review, I will try to elaborate the housing needs of the low-income floating population in urban villages, the development and redevelopment of the urban village, and to answer the question of how the housing needs of this low-income floating population are being dealt with through the urban village redevelopment projects. Through a theoretical review of low-income housing, I will make suggestions regarding the methods of development and redevelopment of urban villages.