I was reading about this with respect to San Francisco] and how Google employees are ruining the property market there, but it's a worldwide phenomenon apparently (though I might misremembering the claim): suburbs are over. Where in the past the rich people sought to escape the inner cities with their poverty, poor infrastructure, and insecurity, apparently now they're moving back. City centers have changed in some life-affirming way and whatever used to make suburbs attractive now makes them seem empty. There's a long article somewhere explaining the trend but I can't find it now.
Anyhoooo, I grew up in suburbs in Australia, and my first place away from the nest was a rented unit in the suburbs of Melbourne. It was awful. The suburb was pleasant of course, but the experience was deadly dull. My second place was right on the edge of the CBD and since then it's always seemed to me that renting a place in a CBD is a superior choice to even buying a place in a suburb.
Not sure how this relates to China, except that homeownership is some crazy mixed up dream here and saying, let's rent, is akin to killing grandma - maybe a good idea in the short term, but it'll undermine your security.