This Day, That Year

Item from Jan 18, 1983, in China Daily: Bird's eye view ... another new building takes shape in west Beijing.

Beijing maintained momentum in housing construction in 1982 by completing 70,000 residential apartments ... Authorities are giving priority to housing in capital construction, and the proportion of the completed floor space of housing to that of total capital construction has risen yearly. ...

Beijing's shortage of housing cannot be solved within a short period. Preliminary statistics indicate that in 1981, the city's per capita living space averaged only 5.08 square meters.