Analysis: Property Crisis Pushes Major Cities to Make It Easier to Get Local Residency

Some of China’s major cities have become the latest to make it easier for migrants to acquire local residency, driven by multiple pressures including stagnant population growth, slumping consumption and the country’s property crisis.

Since the start of this year, at least eight cities with over 5 million long-term residents — mostly in the economic powerhouses of the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta — have lowered residency thresholds. Many of them have also joined the nationwide trend of lifting local homebuying curbs, which were introduced to cool China’s then-booming property market. The phrase “long-term resident” includes both those with local residency and those who’ve lived in the city for over six months.