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Elaine Chan

Until recently, the average Shanghainese was used to sharing a bathroom and kitchen with at least 10 others.

  But with China moving towards a market economy and old districts being torn down to make way for high-rise flats, housing conditions are taking a turn for the better.

  While the process may be painful for some, there are those like Yu Tiangen who believe the redevelopment sweeping the city is the best thing that has happened in a long time.

  Last October, the 66-year-old retired security guard and his wife moved into a brand new 505.9 square foot flat complete with a bathroom and kitchen.

  'This is the first time we have lived in such an environment,' beamed Mr Yu.

  'We are very satisfied and in good spirits,' he said, adding that not even living further away from the city centre could dampen his mood.

  For the elderly couple, whose three grownup children have left home, gone are the arguments with neighbours over the use of the bathroom or kitchen which used to rule the day.

  Mr Yu said the family used to live with five other households in a five-room shiku men house - built in the early 1930s in two-storey buildings separated by narrow alleyways - in Shanghai's prime Jingan district. Each room had a gross floor area of 86 sq ft.

  But the house in Taixing Road has now been demolished to make way for redevelopment.

  'I lived in public housing in Jingan for more than 40 years,' Mr Yu said.

  'It was very dirty and there were lots of squabbles. In the summer there were lots of mosquitoes. There were low areas and when it rained, it flooded. We also used chamber pots,' he said.

  Mr Yu and his family are among the lucky 3.7 million people to have already been resettled into new housing estates on the outskirts of the city centre.

  But the Shanghai government estimates at least 200,000 people or 80,000 to 90,000 households are still living under the same conditions Mr Yu suffered.

  Sixty-two year old Xie Jinchun, who moved into the same housing estate last April, can well identify with Mr Yu's feelings of 'those dark gloomy days'. His family of four used to be crammed into a 161.5 sq ft attic in a three-storey shiku men house in the Jingan district.

  'We did everything in the attic room, eat, sleep, bathe. In summer it was burning hot and in winter it was freezing cold.' He now lives with his wife in a 742.7 sq ft flat.

  The Shanghai government has marked out 23 old districts including Hongkou, Yangpu, Zhabei, Luwan and Nanshi to be redeveloped and 39.3 million sq ft of 'poor, dangerous and crude' housing is earmarked to be demolished by the year 2000. To date, 18.8 million sq ft has been redeveloped.

  Officials say at least 200,000 people are crammed into houses in the low areas of the city - living in unhygienic conditions.

  However, shortage of funds is a problem. Ideally, the government would like to attract foreign capital into redeveloping the old districts, but even a guaranteed 15 per cent return on investment is not drawing as much interest as officials had hoped.

  Chief engineer of the Shanghai Urban Planning and Design Institute, Chen Youhua , calculated that 100,000 yuan (HK$920,000) has to be spent for every affected household.

  He puts the cost of one redevelopment project at 360 million yuan.

  Shanghai's current per capita living space is about 80 sq ft and the government wants to achieve 100 sq ft by 2000. In order to reach that goal, at least 86 million sq ft of housing has to be built.

  Shanghai started its housing reforms in 1991 and led the country in establishing the first housing fund in which workers who have invested money in the scheme can subsequently draw on the fund to buy flats.

  According to the director of the Shanghai Municipal Housing Development Bureau, Wang Wenzhong , the worker contributes 5 per cent of his wages to the fund monthly while his employer contributes another 5 per cent of the salary.

  The fund is used exclusively to help solve the housing problems of workers. Workers could use money from the fund to purchase low-cost flats or old state-owned apartments, said Mr Wang.

  By the end of 1995, the fund was worth 7.72 billion yuan.

  Of that amount, 1.37 billion was used to buy flats for workers and 4.1 billion was loaned to work units to build housing. 'Workers will be able to draw on whatever amounts they have invested,' said the general manager of the Shanghai Housing Developing Centre, Han Jiahe .

  He added that despite the help on offer, buying property had yet to catch on with most Shanghainese.

    'There is no desire to buy flats despite the Chinese banks cutting rates on loans used for home purchases.'   The Shanghai branch of the Construction Bank said 1.8 billion yuan was set aside for loans to flat-buyers this year and it expects the fledging mortgage market to grow 30 per cent every year.

  Meanwhile, Mr Yu says he is planning to buy his new flat, for which he pays 17.1 yuan a month in rent.

  The asking price is 27.9 yuan a square foot, a concessionary price to mark his long work service.

  'This is the first time I will have owned anything in my life and the value of the flat will increase. The room which we lived in before was my mother's. When she died, I only inherited the lease rights.

  'I want to buy my own flat so that I can have something to leave to my children and grandchildren,' he said.



Goodbye to Shanghai's slums