Land cooperatives as an approach of suburban space construction: Under the reform of Chinese land transfer market

Abstract

In China, the urban–rural dual structure of land market has resulted in urban sprawl caused by industrial diffusion. Urban sprawl disintegrated agricultural communities in suburbs, thereby increasing the unemployment rate among farmers who lost their lands. To address this problem, the Chinese government proposed a reform program to analyze the monopoly of the government in the land market and guarantee the property rights of farmers.This study analyzed the connection between land market mechanism and suburban space formation. Results concluded that the current land transfer system caused industrial urban sprawl, and the reform program may promote the urban sprawl of population. Two typical models of rural land development were studied. A model called land cooperatives based on land pooling joint stock system was proposed to build a compact and sustainable suburban space.