Mapping Urban Living Rights: Decoding Fujian's 'Private Housing Reform' and 'House Swapping' Archives
Geographic Connections Fuzhou, Xiamen, Zhangzhou, Zhao’an, Quanzhou, Nanping, Sanming, Gulou District, Taijiang District, Cangshan District, Wangzhuang, and Fenghaoshan. Introduction: From Private Shelters to State-Managed Leasing In the vast ocean of digital local chronicles, the transformation of urban housing systems is the most delicate prism reflecting social structure changes. In the early days of the People’s Republic, the housing structure in Fujian’s cities was highly complex, consisting of century-old mansions, modern apartments funded by overseas Chinese, and sprawling shantytowns. According to the Fujian Provincial Chronicles: Urban-Rural Construction, to establish a socialist economic foundation, Fujian officially launched the “Private Housing Reform” (the socialist transformation of private rental housing) in late 1958. This was not a simple confiscation but a “redemption” approach where properties meeting specific thresholds were taken into state-managed leasing (经租). From that moment on, a “house” was no longer just a private shelter; it was integrated into a highly organized urban administrative system. Through a digital humanities interpretation of these dry area statistics, we can reconstruct the social reality of central cities like Fuzhou and Xiamen half a century ago. ...