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China's overlooked rural building opportunities

By Fu Jing (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-01-12 07:57

This winter, my parents abandoned their idea of buying an apartment in a township in picturesque Sichuan province. Instead, they chose to build a two-story house in their village, a 20-minute ride away from the town, after taking my suggestion that a quiet rural life is healthy for aging people.

Since this is the fourth time for my parents, in their 60s, to build or expand their house, we have all taken it seriously.

During long-distance phone conversations I advised them to move to a larger area in the village away from the foot of the mountain, which was traditionally regarded as a better location in southern China. But now, frequent bad weather has exposed the 20-year-old house increasingly to the dangers of landslides and flooding from the mountain, yards away from their home.

Safety is priority and they agreed.

In addition, I asked them to adapt to the concept of building property that can be handed down from generation to generation, instead of being pulled down in 20 or 30 years. And I also sold my green ideas to power the house by digging a methane pool in the basement and installing a solar panel on the roof. Digging a small pool in the yard to collect rainwater was also on my suggestion list.

They are using them. Recently, father told me on the phone joyfully: "I've set an example and several families in the village have decided to become my neighbors." And he says the villagers also want to make their homes greener if they can afford to do it.

After three-decades of development, old farmers like my parents have started to realize their dreams of owning a comfortable home in a village. And for younger generation of migrant workers, this is also a shared dream after many have already found that settling down in cities is still a dream.

There is a tremendous (green) market: China has about 300 million rural households. In northern China, most villagers live in one-story yard next-door homes, but in the south, the farmers' houses are scattered. That's a general picture of the Chinese farming residential landscape.

My parents tell me their budget is 150,000 yuan for their dream house. Just imagine, if 100 million households build their new houses within the next five years and take my parents' budget as average price tag, it's a market worth $2 trillion. Let alone what they'd spend on new appliances and furniture.

China cannot afford to ignore the market.

But when talking about its stimulus packages saving China from economic recession, the policymakers have focused part of their efforts on reviving the sluggish housing market in cities. In the rural areas, they have designed measures to encourage the residents to find jobs after they were laid off in coastal cities. And they also seek to explore their consumption potential by subsidizing farmers to buy more house electronic appliances.

Up to now, it seems that the decision-makers have not realized that a new chain of job opportunities can be created by encouraging farmers to own comfortable green houses in their villages after toiling in cities. And in any stimulus measures unveiled so far, the policy makers didn't mention a single word to encourage rural house building.

And even from central government down, we don't have a special governmental unit to coordinate rural housing construction and design. Otherwise, I would not have the privilege to act as my parents' long distance advisor in Beijing all along the construction chain.

It's time to act now.

Thirty years have passed since 1978 when China started its market-oriented reform move and the old generation of migrants has contributed tremendously to the urban prosperity. They deserve preferential policies and even financial support to help own safe and comfortable homes.

From ecological and land-saving perspectives, China's vast rural areas need better care. Better architectural designs, sewage treatment systems, and more compact buildings can ensure farmers live an enjoyable life in retirement. This can also help us save enough land to plant crops and feed China's big population.

In China, rural house construction is not an easy topic to handle. But put it within the context of 30th anniversary of opening up and reform and coping with the financial crisis, the pro-poor urgency is obvious.

Helping farmers construct a house with a minimum life span of 200 years is a green responsibility China should embrace.

Email:fujing@chinadaily.com.cn