Introduction to the Special Issue - Land and Real Estate Development in the Greater China

This special issue brings together three papers addressing the urban outcomes of real estate investment in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. These countries/regions are known for recording high property values relative to local pur- chasing power in their main urban areas. Price-to-income ratios in the residential sector range from 15 in Taipei to 35 in Hong Kong and Chinese tier-one cities such as Beijing and Shanghai. Yet critical home unaffordability is nothing new in Northeast Asia. In the 1980-1990s, a series of property booms previously raised concern in the region. Japan started to experience a“land bubble”of considerable magnitude from 1985 to 1991, whilst at the same time, Hong Kong and Taiwan were subject to sub- stantial increases in property prices. Soon after, several Southeast Asian countries started to experience unexpected inflation in their property markets, which led to the cription of the“ Asian crisis“(1997) as a result of real estate turmoil in Thailand. These boom-bust cycles were caused by the massive supply of bank lending to real estate resulting from the liberalization of financial markets in East Asian countries(Aveline-Dubach& Li, 2004; Dehesh& Pugh, 2000, Mera& Renaud, 2000) . It was also found that Japan had “exported”its domestic land bubble in Southeast Asia by fueling local property markets with international loans to local banks(Amyx, 2000; Wemer, 1994) .