Quote from The Financial Times:

"China takes bifurcation to a new extreme. Not only are housing prices in the biggest cities moving in a different direction to those in smaller centres, there is also a glaring discrepancy in the amount of development being undertaken."

"The country's main metropolises – Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, which each have populations of more than 10m – suffer from chronic shortages of housing for low to middle-income residents. By contrast, scores of smaller cities with populations of up to 3m face an increasingly severe oversupply."

"The government has given priority to the country's biggest cities in its formulation of policies, often at the expense of weaker markets. The big new idea is to make more land available for development to rein in prices – a measure that, if implemented, will only exacerbate the woes of smaller cities."