China's Landed Urbanization: Neoliberalizing Politics, Land Commodification, and Municipal Finance in the Growth of Metropolises

Abstract

Prevailing theories of uneven development see the growth of cities and regions as the spatial outcome of either the functioning of intrinsic agglomeration economies or the intrusion of global neoliberal market forces. Emphasis is placed on human resources and technology with land and capital usually taken for granted. This study of the growth of two leading Chinese metropolises—Beijing and Guangzhou—identifies a distinct strategy of urbanization financed by land commodification and actively pursued by Chinese municipal governments to contest with state power reshuffling in the era of neoliberalization. Contrary to popular notions, land commodification, rather than human capital or advanced technology, has played a role instrumental to the growth and transformation of China's metropolises. The popular practice of landed urbanization owes its political origins more to domestic state power reshuffling than to the intrusion of the global neoliberal agenda. State and market do not function as two diametrically opposing and self-contained entities but are characterized by their diverse and conflictual internal dynamics. Local states are found to have embraced and manipulated market forces for their political agenda. Theorization of global urbanism needs to go beyond the Euro-American comfort zone and to take seriously alternative practices and struggles found in the Global South.