Researchers from the China University of Mining and Technology in Xuzhou, the Nanjing University in Nanjing, the Earth Observation Center (EOC) of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Oberpfaffenhofen and our Earth Observation Research Cluster (EORC) of the University of Würzburg teamed up for a study on housing utilization efficiency in China. The main finding of this study reveals that the overall housing utilization efficiency in China’s highly urbanized areas decreased from 84% in 2010 to 78% in 2020. The respective paper titled “The decreasing housing utilization efficiency in China’s cities” was just published in the journal Nature Cities by Lifeng Shi, Tobias Leichtle, Xianjin Huang, Michael Wurm and Hannes Taubenböck.

Here is the abstract of the paper: ‘Ghost cities’ are a well-known phenomenon of (almost) complete vacancy of urban living space in China. Underutilization of urban living space, however, is far more common than complete vacancy. Here we propose the concept of housing utilization efficiency (HUE) and present the following findings: (1) the overall HUE in China’s highly urbanized areas decreased from 84% in 2010 to 78% in 2020, (2) the HUE in central, old urban areas was generally lower than that in the outer layers of urban areas and declined more from 2010 to 2020 and (3) four development types are found to represent different patterns of urban population movement, urban housing growth and HUE change at the intraurban level. These findings provide comprehensive insight into the discrepancies between urban housing supply and demand in China and highlight their connections to the country’s

particular urbanization characteristics and policies, which are crucial for future housing development and planning.

And, here is the link to the full paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s44284-024-00177-8

And, here is the link to the respective blog post: https://communities.springernature.com/posts/the-decreasing-housing-utilization-efficiency-in-china-s-cities