Youqin Huang

Geography, 2001

Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and Planning and a Research Associate of Center for Social and Demographic Analysis (CSDA) at the State University of New York, Albany. Her research interests include migration, mobility, urban structure, gender, and quantitative methods. Professor Huang's most recent research focuses on housing and migration. Huang studies decision-making in housing behavior, and how residential mobility and housing choice influence the urban landscape and commuting patterns. In two papers published in Urban Studies and Housing Studies, she shows that housing provision and consumption in urban China is undergoing a profound transformation because of the introduction of market mechanisms into a previously welfare oriented system. In this transitional context, housing decisions are determined by not only household characteristics and housing market factors, but also households' institutional positions in relation to public housing agents. In two other articles she finds that despite the recent impressive improvement in housing conditions and homeownership in urban China, the level of housing consumption is still relatively low and residential crowding is still a problem. She also finds that there are significant variations in housing behavior between cities which she suggests result from differences in local government behavior during the transition.

Among her recent publications are China's Geography: Globalization and the Dynamics of Political, Economic, and Social Change (Rowan & Littlefield, 2006; co-authored), and "The Road to Homeownership: A Longitudinal Analysis of Tenure Transition in Urban China, 1949-1994," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 28 (2004). Professor Huang is chair of the China Geography Special Group of the Assocation of American Geographers.

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Published: Friday, May 26, 2006