From 1993 through this year, Tianjin has torn down a total of 8.4 million sq m of dilapidated houses of over 0.3 million households to make it possible for over 1 million city dwellers to move into new houses. This is unprecedented in China and rarely seen in the world as well.

In the early 1990s, about one fourth of the Tianjin residents lived in over 10 million sq m of dilapidated houses. Usually, a family of 3-4 generations lived under the same roof with an average floor space of less than 10 sq m.

On new year's day of 1994, Tianijin commenced renovation of old and dangerous houses, which was slated to be finished in 5-7 years. When the blueprint was first Made known to the public, some people did not buy it and labeled it impossible or an Arabian Nights whim.

Of course, there existed a great of difficulties: Time was pressing - it must be completed by the year 2000; the project was enormous - 27 million sq m of new houses had to be built; foreign investment was hard to it.

The Tianjin municipal government was resolved to go ahead with the project and set up leading groups in the districts with district leaders in charge. At the same time, suggestions from city residents were adopted.

In 1995, Tianjin mayor Zhang Lichang came to the Hongqiao district to direct the implementation of this project, advocating road construction to bringing about the housing project, viz., roads were built on the sites of the dismantled old houses. In this way, a network of roads, bridges and city proper was built. As a result, the value of land went up to make it easier for getting foreign funding. This is a best way to integrate the housing project with infrastructure construction. And this way was spread to the whole of Tianjin. Another best way was the moving-out households whose houses were pulled down were given cash instead of new houses. In so doing, these households might choose to buy what houses they would like.

The housing project had benefited immense households in Tianjin, driven up nearly 2 percentage points of Tianjin's economy annually, made housing construction a new growth point and brought along the development of 33 related trades. .