Housing is a scarce and valued resource particularly in the urban agglomerations of less developed countries. This study will examine access to housing and the quality of neighborhoods in which people live in a large Chinese city, Tianjin. Chinese cities have developed over the last forty years within a state socialist framework where an egalitarian ideology was promoted, and organized systems of housing and service allocation were based on public rather than private investments. The central research questions guiding this study is what inequalities in housing and urban infrastructure survive in such a system, and what are the factors associated with more favorable outcomes, that is better housing and better neighborhoods. This study will provide important insights into the bases of inequality characteristic of a state socialist economic system. It also provides a crucial baseline for future studies on the impact on the transition to a market economy which is beginning in China.
