User:Iriszhangyuan/sandbox

Definition

A capsule apartment refers to the kind of apartment that is less than 10 square meters. It got its name for its small size, just like a small capsule.However, it really has the complete function. In the capsule apartment, there is a bed in the upper half of the apartment that occupy most of the space and a table that people can use to place computer with. In the lower half part, there is a toilet with a wash bowl and a commode which only crowd in a really small place. Also, the place to cook is included in the apartment as well. Therefore, the capsule apartment was really small, but complete. Right now this kind of apartment is very popular among many cities such as Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Beijing. These cities have a common place-- too many people(and still many people want to crowd in) with limited capacity of holding people and high-price housing. Consequently, though the capsule apartment is small(or say, tiny), the demand of this kind apartment is predicted to be high amoung people due to the situation.

Reason of appearance

People believe that in large and cosmopolitan cities they may gain more opportunities of working or higher quality of studying. Therefore, many nonlocal people flood into those large cities willing to seek for jobs with high saleries or seek for opportunities to become famous as singers or actors. In this case, because that the city's holding capacity is limited, there are too few housing for too many people. The real estate companies tend to rise the housing price to earn profit because they know that however they rise prices, there are always some people can afford that. In the end, those people who earn low salaries cannot afford to buy a house. The appearance of capsule apartments exactly give satisfacation to the people with low income-- small areas with relatively affordable rental, complete function such as kitchen and bathroom, private space without disturbance from sharer. Therefore, the capsule apartment is expected to become popular right after it came out among labor workers and students. In terms of government, capulse apartment is also a suitable solution in solving the housing problem in the country especially for those developing countries.

Housing Problem In China

As the country with the largest population around the world, China faces a significant problem on housing allocation. House prices in China's 70 major cities rose 11.7 percent year-on-year in March, 2010, The steepest gain in almost five years according to data published by National Bureau of Statistics of China. The University of Virginia foreign affairs professor and recent recipient of China's Friendship Award Brantly Womack thinks that one of the biggest problems in Chinese cities is how to deal with the ever-growing urban population. When people move to a new city,the nomber 1 problem is that they need to find a shelter to live. As long as the urban population growing, the housing problem will be extremely hard to solved.

Capsule Apartment in China

In Shijingshan district, Beijing, a seventy-eight-year-old man called Rixin Huang designed his third-generation capsule apartment and opened to public on August, 16, 2010. He rented a 53-square-meter single-storey building by his own and transformed it into eight new capsule rooms. Each single room was less than 3 square meters. However, it contains everything inside of the room-- toilet, bathroom and kitchen, for example. Also, the bed was big enough for Tenants to lie down, sit, watch TV and surf the internet. The new apartment will charge 350 to 450 yuan per month, aiming at helping low-income people and graduates to save money to spend on other areas. Mr. Huang hoped that his third generation of capsule apartments will represent a model to attract government's support to solve the housing problem.

However, Mr. Huang spent nearly 100,000 RMB on the project and already kind of ran out of money and energy to maintain the capsule apartment. He has decided to transfer his program to another person. At first he thought of giving it the the government, but Beijing government firbided dividing up individual rooms between multiple tenant in the new provisions on commodity housing tenancy. He also held an auction but it was not successful because they could not invest enough money in the program that fit Mr. Huang's anticipation. Now he said that he will probably transfer it for free.

First Tenant

The first tenant who came to live in the Huang Rixin's designed apartment was a 25-year-old Shanxi girl named Zhang Qi. She confessed that on the first day she lived in the apartment, it was quite comfortable as she did not bring enough bedding and barely slept in the cold. However, now she is very used to stay in her tiny apartment. Zhang even put colorful wallpaper on the wall to decorate her apartment. "If possible, I would stay even until getting married", said Zhiang Qi.