Welcome to the Chinese city of Tianjin: where the housing glut can build you a better future
Applicants rush in as debt-ridden city appeals to skilled young workers with homebuying dreams
When Liu Yanjun, a 28-year-old IT engineer in Beijing, learned that a nearby city was wooing talent by granting permanent residence to anyone under 40 with a college degree, he rushed to apply.
Tianjin, a city of 16 million people and one of China’s four municipalities, surprised the country when it joined the nationwide race to attract skilled workers by relaxing the rigid household registration system, a shift that could redefine China’s future economic and social landscape.
While Chinese provincial capitals from Xian to Wuhan have opened their arms to young domestic migrants, Tianjin’s move was unexpected because the city has national significance, and there is huge demand for residency because of its benefits – for instance, the odds of a Tianjin student getting in to a top-notch Chinese university are the highest in the country.
Within 24 hours of the city announcing its new policies on May 16, more than 300,000 people – about the population of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – submitted applications through a government service app for permanent residence, according to Tianjin’s local media.
When demand crashed the online system, many, including Liu, rushed to Tianjin in the following days to stand in long lines at government offices to hand in their paperwork.
For more than five hours, he stood in the heat with hundreds of applicants in the zigzag queue at the Tianjin Hexi Administrative Centre, then got a three-minute chance with a city officer to preview his qualifications for residence.
