Evolution of the Structure of the Urban Land-Price System in China Based on the Rank-Size Law

Xiaoyu Liu,Liangjie Xin

doi:10.3390/land11020284

Abstract

China’s cities have experienced rapid and uneven development in recent decades, which influenced urban land prices crucially. Understanding the distribution of the urban land-price system and its evolution would help to provide an in-depth understanding of the development of China’s urban system. Therefore, we combined rank-size law and fractal theory to analyze the patterns and variations of the rank-size distributions of China’s urban land-price system based on land transfer data for 2007–2019. We concluded the following: (1) the rank-size law explains the distribution of the urban land-price system in China—the system was balanced and showed an equilibrium–disequilibrium development; (2) the actual land prices were higher than the theoretical land prices in southeastern China, especially in urban agglomerations, while they were lower in northwestern China; (3) the number of cities located in China’s urban development system was decreasing, and the unevenness of urban land-price system was increasing; and (4) the imbalance of land-price rank-size distributions was higher in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei and Guangdong–Hongkong–Macau Greater Bay Area urban agglomerations, while they were more balanced in the Chengdu–Chongqing and Central Plains urban agglomerations. We suggest that the development of small cities in China has a large upside, which should be noticed.

Highlights

Land price is a comprehensive reflection of a city’s economic strength, population, industrial agglomeration, and other aspects of development [1,2,3]
Urban land prices in the 31–75 and 101–148 ranks of the urban land-price system were distributed above the rank-size curve, indicating that their actual land prices were higher than their theoretical land prices in the system
Urban land prices in the 31–75 and 101–148 ranks of the urban land-price system were distributed above the rank-size curve, indicating that their actual land prices were higher than their theFoirgeutrieca2l

Summary

Introduction

Land price is a comprehensive reflection of a city’s economic strength, population, industrial agglomeration, and other aspects of development [1,2,3]. China’s economic center of gravity has shifted eastward, and the pattern of uneven regional development has rapidly emerged since the 1970s when China began to implement an unbalanced development strategy, which led to the rapid development of the eastern part of China in a short time [4]. In this context, a combination of two factors has led to widening differences in land prices between China’s cities. Developed cities are more conducive for productive activities than backward cities, attracting the migration of capital, population, and industry, which increase the demand for land, causing differences in the rate of land price changes compared to other cities [6]

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