Residential communities specially designed for China's younger generation are popping up in China's big cities, offering a place to live, start a business, and make friends.
You+ International Youth Community is considered one of the first companies to offer this type of accommodation service to renters across China.
Graffiti adorns walls around the community, and the rental rooms are all tastefully decorated and equipped with all the trappings of modern life. More than 400 young people live and work at one of the You+ communities in downtown Beijing.
Its founder and chairman Liu Yang has worked and lived in six cities around the country.
"I understand the 'transient' and 'precarious' feeling of living in an unknown city," Liu, 42, said. His own experience inspired him to provide young people with a real "home," and somewhere they kickstart their career.
Young people do not often communicate with their neighbors since they are busy working so hard, Liu said.
"People are uncomfortable in an unfamiliar environment," he said. "Thus, safety comes in numbers."
"Home means warm, safe, and stable," Liu said. "Our You+ community is grounded in these concepts."
Liu raised eight million yuan (about 1.24 million U.S. dollars) in 2011 and opened his first youth community in Guangzhou, south China's Guangdong Province.
"Young people do not necessarily need a very big bedroom, they prefer communal recreational spaces," Liu said. "We assign spaces for cafes, KTV rooms, cinemas, billiards, and gyms."
The maximum age for residents of the community is 35 years old, and no children are allowed. Rent ranges from 1,500 to 6,000 yuan a month.
"Actually residents can save more money by volunteering for the community, as all our facilities are free except beverages and snacks."
The youth communities pride themselves on being a place to live, rather than somewhere to stay. "We are pushing strangers to become acquaintances by living in the community," Liu said. "It's just like neighbors in the village."
The community is also an industrial incubator where private companies could be registered.
