In the hard, exhaust-choked reality of his days trawling the clogged roads, Zhang Bo’s

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ambition to buy a small flat for his young family has slipped out of reach for now.

Like many Chinese who covet real estate as a symbol of stability and social stature, the taxi driver is dismayed at the alarming rise in apartment prices in his adopted city, Shenzhen, in southern China.

‘‘People can’t afford new flats anymore,’’ said Mr. Zhang, 28, who has driven a taxi to make ends meet since his small electronics factory failed during the financial downturn last year.

‘‘It’s a very distant goal for us. Something we can only dream about,’’ said the spiky-haired native of Hubei Province, who takes home about 6,000 renminbi, or $880, in fares a month. He likes to joke that he now has to work three months just to buy one square meter, or about 10 square feet, of residential space in the city’s suburbs.

As one of millions of workers gravitating to China’s major cities in search of work and opportunity, Mr. Zhang’s problem mirrors those faced by many Chinese who are beneficiaries of the country’s economic rise but who are nevertheless finding it increasingly difficult to own homes.

‘‘The affordability is deteriorating because of the rapidly rising prices and increasing mortgages for home buyers, particularly for investors,’’ said Xavier Wong, head of research for greaterChina at the property consultant Knight Frank.

In January, property prices in 70 cities across China rose 9.5 percent from the level of a year earlier. The eighth consecutive annual rise added to worries of a real estate bubble.

Stephen Green, a China economist at Standard Chartered Bank, said that at least seven cities had seen land prices triple in 2009.

‘‘This is clearly bubble territory for the land markets in many cities,’’ he wrote in a report in early February.

The property bubble has become a hot social topic, spawning TV shows, Internet chatter, books and buzzwords like fangnu, or ‘‘house slaves.’’ Apopular TV drama called ‘‘Dwelling Narrowness,’’ depicting the tribulations of a family struggling to buy an apartment in a city modeled on Shanghai,was yanked from the airwaves in some places, hinting at government sensitivities about the subject matter.

The migration of families and university graduates in major cities to cheap, rented quarters on urban fringes could pose a socioeconomic challenge for the government, as the middle class malaise could lead to protests and threaten Communist Party rule.

Risks of an asset bubble have prompted Beijing to tighten monetary policies to help cap price increases in land and residential markets, with major developers like China Vanke watching future policies closely.

Last week, for the second time this year, China raised the level of reserves banks must hold, a move that could dent demand for risky assets.

Analysts said the government could use other tools, like mortgage rates, higher minimum down payments on second homes or a property tax, to cool the sector.

The measures appear to be working, with sales of new and existing homes down across the country in January, leading to dampened sentiment and a slide in prices in some cities.

Analysts say that the governmentmay not be able to rein in the property sector too aggressively, though, since it is a main pillar of the economy, with investments there accounting for more than 10 percent of gross domestic product.

‘‘The central government is trying to get the price down for a short period of time,’’ said Andy Xie, an independent China economist. ‘‘They’re squeezing out the people with money to allow the middle class to be able to afford it again.’’ ‘‘The local developers who have liquidity know the game. They’ll be asking, ‘Why should I discount nowand sell to poor people when I know the government will come around and open this up again,’ so that they can sell to rich people again? It’s very much a political economy thing,’’ he said.

Unlike Hong Kong or Singapore, which provide ample cheap public housing for their citizens, most cities in China lack such municipal infrastructure.

Analysts said a common way of calculating affordability of housing was to measure the percentage of monthly household income needed to pay mortgage installments. They said 30 to 40 percent was deemed reasonable in Asia.