Fragmented expansion induces rural housing wealth differences in urban fringes: Evidence from fine-grained housing data in Shanghai, China

Abstract

The dynamic changes in urban fringes have been widely studied in the context of suburbanization, but few studies have disaggregated the fragmented expansion or intrinsic differences in rural housing at the household or village level. Using fine-grained housing data from 66 villages in Shanghai for the period of 1978–2017, we elucidated the fragmented variation in rural housing and the state of wealth differences in urban fringes at the household or village levels, as well as examined the relationships between rural housing expansion and housing wealth differences through the combined use of Gini coefficient decomposition, Shapley decomposition, and quantile regression. The results showed that the disparate increases in rural housing wealth in Shanghai's metropolitan suburbs were largely due to the unapproved and frequent growth of auxiliary rooms in households. Villages adjacent to downtown areas or towns have been able to engage in this form of construction more than those further away, stimulating rural housing differences at the landscape scale. Driven by the opportunity spaces that emerge from government policies and the demand for rentals near sources of urban employment, the unregulated and disorganized dynamic of rural auxiliary rooms have exacerbated existing inequalities and resulted in stratified wealth differentiation within urban fringes. In conclusion, we suggest clarifying the approval system for the construction of rural rooms and implementing effective land use planning to manage fragmented housing growth, thereby leading to more balanced wealth growth and improved land use efficiency.