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Using the 2005 microcensus data set, this research adopts a multilevel approach to examine housing outcomes in relation to city-level contexts. We find that housing stratification in contemporary China is not homogeneous across cities but rather is spatially dynamic and conditioned by local contexts. Net of other effects, per capita gross domestic product and housing price are significantly associated with housing outcomes in the open market, whereas the effect of a city's administrative rank is restricted to the social housing domain. In addition, in relatively rich cities, the advantage of proper institutional affiliations in owning commodity housing somewhat diminishes, but it remains persistent, if not strengthened, in owning reformed housing and affordable housing. The effects of market-related factors (i.e., education and income) on housing outcomes also vary across cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on an institutional analysis of China's urban housing and land market, this research demonstrates how the triangular relations among the central government, local governments, and the market evolved in response to new opportunities continuously created by market transformation and policies strictly enforced by the central government. In particular, the authors argue that the territory-based coalition between local governments and selective enterprises in the reform era is a persistent rather than a transitory phenomenon. Local state marketism-which highlights the power imbalance among the central government, local governments, and society; conflicted interests within the state; and a dynamic, volatile, and paradoxical network at the disposal of local governments-is proposed as a conceptual framework that accounts for the evolution of triangular relations among the central government, local governments, and the market in reform-era China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]