China Tries to Inflict Pain in Push for Subsidized Housing

In an effort to move forward low-income housing projects, which must be paid for by local governments (local governments which, for the most part, have no income streams aside from selling land to developers for high-profile projects), the central government is trying to hit them where it hurts, their thirst for ostentatious official offices.

Govt steps up push for subsidized residences

China's State Council announced this weekend that local governments that have failed to complete the construction of planned subsidized housing projects will not be allowed to construct or buy new official buildings.

Of the subsidized-housing projects that the government plans to have built in 2011, 86 percent were under construction within the first eight months of the year, according to statistics from the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.

One does wonder what constitutes "under construction". Girders being ordered? A single shovel in the ground?

The central government wishes to "offer hope", as the article phrases it, to the disenfranchised masses. But the numbers don't work, and won't until there is real revenue streams for the local government to draw upon. Oh and the rife corruption in development would have to be dealt with too.