A description of the work (Abstract): With the fastest urbanization process, Chinese cities have experienced extraordinary housing development and marketization, resulting in a significant shift in housing consumption. However, over time, housing inequality has increased significantly, especially among different socio-economic groups. This dissertation used 2017 Chinese General Social Survey data to explore the underlying factors of housing inequality and interaction relationships with other types of inequality (e.g., occupational inequality, income inequality, wealth inequality and intergenerational inequality and so on). The findings suggest that in the current privatized and commodified housing market, socioeconomic status, such as education, gender and age would have a significant effect on housing choice and lead to housing inequalities. Furthermore, this dissertation uses a case study of Beijing to explore the change of underlying causes from a historical perspective. In China, the real estate market experienced three stages, which are socialistic allocation stage (before 1998), privatization stage – market-based housing reform (1999-2008) and housing price booming stage (2009-2021). In the pre-reform era, political status was the primary driver of housing inequality. With the establishment of a privatized and commodified housing market following reform, some political drivers such as political position and work unit have a diminishing impact on housing decisions, whereas hukou remain a lasting effect on housing market. These findings support market transmission theory and power persistence theory, implying that the political system and market mechanism are both influencing the housing market at the same time. These findings point policymakers in the right direction for implementing more targeted measures to promote sustainable development in metropolitan areas.

The concept of Transit-oriented Development (TOD) has been widely practised in big cities, including Tokyo, Hong Kong, London, and New York City, to improve urban lives by integrating land use and transportation planning (Atmadja and Bogunovich, 2019; Murray and Weerappulige, 2021), and addressing urban-related issues, comprising poverty, transport emissions, disintegrated urban system, and lack of affordable housing (Boarnet et al., 2017; Derakhti and Baeten, 2020). However, TOD poses potential risks of transit-induced gentrification and housing inequality (Ahlfeldt and Wendland, 2009; Duncan, 2011). Several countries, including Thailand, India, Colombia, the US, and the UK, introduced the inclusionary housing concept to respond to the risks. In Indonesia, the Balanced Housing policy was created to form social harmony in TOD areas (Mungkasa, 2020; Benson, 2010). However, its effectiveness is yet to be studied (Farha, 2017; Maharani, 2015).This study compares inclusionary housing policy in Jakarta and other cities in developing and developed countries to identify the research limitation from the existing literature. This research collects primary and secondary data through grey and academic literature reviews, semistructured interviews, and electronic surveys. The analysis of housing inequality and the Balanced Housing policy's effectiveness is based on house price mappings around the selected TOD areas in Jakarta, the electronic survey's findings from the impacted communities, and the perspectives of the experts, planners, academics, private developers, and nonprofit organisations on the Balanced Housing policy's enforcement in Jakarta.The research finds that despite contributing to the housing production in Jakarta, the Balanced Housing policy is still ineffective in fostering inclusive neighbourhoods and creating affordable housing to address housing inequality in Jakarta TOD areas. The research findings and lessons learned from other countries become the basis to provide some policy suggestions for Indonesia's government to make the current Balanced Housing and conversion fund policy perform better, including the need for creating a more efficient planning process and enforcement. This research also recommends future studies involving academics and experts to provide more dialogues between academia and the practitioners in view of the Balanced Housing policy's effectiveness in Jakarta TOD areas.