Unlocking Chinese cities' potential

Key to success has been authorities' flexible approach, guided by close monitoring of market signals

Residential property prices in China’s first-tier cities – Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen – are back up. A home there now runs buyers half as much as a home in the world’s most expensive cities: New York, London, and Hong Kong. Letting some of the air out of this housing bubble, before too much pressure builds up, will require improved management of China’s rapid urbanisation — and not just in the four first-tier cities.
 
Of course, the housing situation is most urgent in the first-tier cities. And their governments have moved quickly to cool the market. Beijing, for example,