Modes of land development in Shanghai

Abstract

Land development modelling and simulation provides critical information and insights for city land resource planning and management. However, studies on simulating urban land development often treat it as a singular and uniform process and neglect place-based decision-making processes and multiple tracks of how urban land is developed. This study attempts to identify the locally embedded, place-based processes of land conversion and redevelopment during the reform period in Shanghai. In doing so, this study conducts in-depth interviews and collects extensive land use and planning data to examine the land development decision-making processes of the city. In conjunction with the content analysis of government documents and urban planning results, this study proposes to frame the current land development of Shanghai into State-led Market-based Land Development, Informal Land Development, State-led Land Redevelopment, State-approved Independent Development, and Megaproject-based Land Development, according to land use types, property rights, and intermediate agencies. By comparing urban planning and actual land use change data, the study delineates the location and estimate magnitude of each of the land development modes in Shanghai. Different from market-based land development systems, the results show that the state interventions in the land market has been prevalent to create a unique government-led land development system with multiple approaches and land use change trajectories in Shanghai. The result explains why current land development modelling and simulation cannot mimic the actual land development process properly. Furthermore, the study provides the empirical basis for new theorization of land development in China.