Affordable living a major attraction of Chongqing

Chongqing landscape.[Photo/Icpress]

When I drink coffee on the balcony of my spacious riverside apartment, enjoying the views of the beautiful Jialing River and distant evergreen mountains, I cannot help but wonder: will I ever go back to Beijing?

Even if I ignore the smoggy days and terrible traffic in the capital, I am still hesitating to move back if I don’t have to. With my salary as a reporter, I will never afford a decent two-bedroom flat in downtown Beijing as I did in my hometown Chongqing.

Like many of the young people in the city, I am deeply attracted by the affordable housing in this southwestern metropolis, which has become one of the major reasons to work here.

Zhao Wenkai, 30, decided to find a job in his hometown Chongqing after earning a law degree at Nanjing University in 2012.

Before graduation, Zhao did thorough research on Nanjing’s real estate market and found the crucial fact that his parents would have to sell everything to pay for the down payment of an 80-sqm apartment in Nanjing, where the average price is 35,000-40,000 yuan per sq m in some nice areas.

Chaotianmen Port in Chongqing. This is where the Jialing River meets the Yangtze River. [Photo/Icpress]

“If I want to marry a girl, I need to have a home first,” the young man said. “Nanjing is too expensive.”

Thanks to the effective land-control policies of local government and fierce market competition, Chongqing's average housing price has long been the lowest compared with Beijing, Shanghai, and Tianjin, the nation's three other municipalities directly under the central government.

In February, Chongqing's average residential housing price was 6,778 yuan per sq m, ranking 24th among 31 major Chinese cities, according to real estate market data provider cityre.cn .

In comparison, the price was 35,022 yuan per sq m in Beijing, 29,654 yuan per sq m in Shanghai, and 14,096 yuan per sq m in Tianjin.

But Chongqing people are making no less money than those in other cities. The 2014 annual average disposable income of western municipality residents was 25,133 yuan, ranking12th of the 31 major Chinese cities, statistics from the Chongqing government website show.

“The affordable housing is one of the best things for the people in Chongqing where the dream to have our own home is within our reach,” said Mao Yabin, a lecturer at Chongqing University. The young man from neighboring Hubei province has lived in Nanjing and Ningbo before settling down in the city.

As many young Chinese graduates begin to choose to work in more affordable cities, I have noticed something similar in the United States.

Jiefangbei, or Liberation Monument, is located in downtown Chongqing.[Photo/Icpress]

When I was working in Washington DC back in 2011, I once visited Atlanta and interviewed its mayor Kasim Reed.

Boasting of "Irreplaceable" transportation networks in the air, railroads and highways, as well as pleasant weather and relatively low living costs, the city is a popular destination for the well-educated young, the mayor told me.

"We are the No 1 city in the US for attracting college students aged between 24 and 35," Reed said.

This is true. My graduate school classmate Grace used to work in Atlanta as a reporter. When she was assigned to a more senior post in DC, one of the most expensive cities in the US, she was really reluctant to move.

Here comes the question again: Is a small shabby flat in Beijing really better than a modern fancy apartment in Chongqing?