Building talented worker housing in Shenzhen, China, to sustain place competitiveness

In China, economic reforms over the last three decades, have transformed its urban governments so that economic growth takes priority over other policy goals. The purpose of this paper is to explore how talented worker housing policies have emerged within one of China’s first-class cities, namely Shenzhen, to address its affordability problems but also to enhance local economic competitiveness. Whilst Shenzhen is heading in the direction of an international, entrepreneurial city focusing, in particular, on high value-added industry, it needs to attract and retain professional, skilled workers to sustain this growth trajectory. Drawing on the concept of urban entrepreneurialism, the paper examines how talented worker housing policies and procedures have been initiated and implemented in Shenzhen in relation to its economic development strategy and affordable housing programme. The paper suggests that not only is policy delivery proving problematic, but affordability problems remain insurmountable, thus potentially limiting the effectiveness of this particular urban entrepreneurial strategy in supporting place competitiveness.