Smart governance for affordable housing in China: Preparation, practice, and paradoxes

Smart governance based on digital technologies offers new possibilities for enhancing governance efficacy. This article aims to explore how smart governance can be systematically applied in affordable housing. To this end, the article proposes an analytical framework that reveals the relationship among smart governance practices, pre-practice preparations, the balancing of paradoxes, and the good governance of affordable housing, then the case of Hangzhou is employed to illustrate this framework. This article argues that smart governance is not a patchwork of fragmented application scenarios but a coherent system. Smart governance for affordable housing needs to be prepared in terms of technology infrastructure and institutional innovation. During the preparation and practice phases, it is also need to balance a series of paradoxes to realize public values, which is the basis for achieving good governance for affordable housing. This article contributes to the theoretical understanding of the various components of smart governance and their intrinsic logical relationships, as well as provides an existing case of affordable housing smart governance for the reference of other cities.