Housing property redistribution and elite capture in the redevelopment of urban villages: A case study in Wuhan, China

Abstract

The redistribution of housing property in sync with the redevelopment of urban villages had become a cardinal issue during the transitional period of China. It was found that housing redistribution had been influenced by the compensation standards, property rights and social status, based on the analysis of the field survey of two typical cases with different property rights and compensation standards, in Wuhan. Gains and losses of the urban villagers from urban construction varied between the two compensation modes. There was a certain degree of spillover of the housing property compensation in both communities, and the contribution of position redistribution was always higher than share redistribution. The positive influence of social status on the housing compensation spillover rates showed that the elite capture was more obvious in collectively owned land owing to the characteristics of grassroots autonomy and the differential sequences of social relations, in rural areas. It was needful to concentrate on the formulation of compensation policies of the housing security and social security for vulnerable groups, besides strengthening the supervision and audit work in terms of policy implementation.