Land Development In China Research Articles

Optimizing the development of contaminated land in China: Exploring machine-learning to identify risk markers

Often available for use, previously developed land, which includes residential and commercial/industrial areas, presents a significant challenge due to the risk to human health. China's 2018 release of health risk assessment standards for land reuse aimed to bridge this gap in soil quality standards. Despite this, the absence of representative indicators strains risk managers economically and operationally. We improved China's land redevelopment approach by leveraging a dataset of 297,275 soil samples from 352 contaminated sites, employing machine learning. Our method incorporating soil quality standards from seven countries to discern patterns for establishing a cost-effective evaluative framework. Our research findings demonstrated that detection costs could be curtailed by 60% while maintaining consistency with international soil standards (prediction accuracy = 90–98%). Our findings deepen insights into soil pollution, proposing a more efficient risk assessment system for land redevelopment, addressing the current dearth of expertise in evaluating land development in China.

Regional Integration by Administrative Division Adjustment: City–County Consolidation and Layout of Land Development in China

Regional Integration by Administrative Division Adjustment: City–County Consolidation and Layout of Land Development in China

The structural characteristics and driving mechanism of collaborative innovation network for saline–alkali land development in China

AbstractIt is challenging for a single development subject to complete complex scientific research tasks due to the peculiarities of saline–alkali land. Collaborative innovation and cooperation can help break through the common critical technology R&D problems in the development process by sharing information, technology, knowledge, and resources. However, the process of saline–alkali land development in China is slow and the transformation rate of research results is low. Few articles analyze the current situation and driving mechanism of the collaborative innovation network for saline–alkali land development from the perspective of the innovation chain. This paper first constructs an undirected weighted collaborative innovation network from the upstream, midstream, and downstream levels of technological innovation for saline–alkali land development, analyzing the network's structural characteristics and spatial distribution features. Then uses ERGM to explore the internal and external driving mechanism for network formation from network self‐organization, subject characteristics, and exogenous environmental factors. The results demonstrate that the distribution of the collaborative innovation network is relatively uniform. However, there are also clusters, and the clusters are mostly centered on universities and scientific research institutions. Both the development subjects and clusters present regional features. Centrality and transitivity are crucial to the internal driving mechanism. In the external driving mechanism, the Matthew effect is modest, and the homogeneity effect is considerable; Organizational and technical proximity play a positive role; Geographical and institutional proximity play a blocking role. This study also provides practical enlightenment for encouraging horizontal and vertical collaborative innovation of sustainable development of saline–alkali land.

Sustainable coal mine and coal land development in China

Because land is a non-renewable resource, land reclamation in mining regions has attracted significant research attention. This study divided China's 24 provinces into major and non-major coal-producing regions and employed a dynamic two-stage Slacks-Based Measure (SBM) recycling model to evaluate provincial mining production and mining land recovery stage efficiencies, from which the following was found: 1. the mining production efficiencies in the major coal-producing regions were higher than in the non-major coal-producing regions; 2. the mining land damage efficiencies in the major coal-producing regions were higher than in the non-major coal-producing regions; 3. the mining land recovery efficiencies in the major coal-producing regions were lower than in the non-major coal-producing regions; and 4. the mining land recovery efficiencies were better than the mining land damage efficiencies. Fourteen provinces; six major coal-producing regions and eight non-major coal-producing regions; had mining land recovery efficiencies of 1. This study suggested that the central government should assist the mining industry to upgrade its human resources to improve mining management and sustainability efficiencies.

Elite Capture and Corruption: The Influence of Elite Collusion on Village Elections and Rural Land Development in China

AbstractThis article presents a qualitative empirical study of elite collusion and its influence on village elections and rural land development in China. Drawing on ethnographic data collected from two Chinese villages, it investigates how village cadres collude with other rural elites, using bribery, gift-giving and lavish banquets, to establish reciprocal ties with township officials and other public officials. Meanwhile, the officials make use of formal organizations to corruptly obtain profits and form alliances with village elites. The article examines how rural elites, especially village cadres, use this collusion to profit from the misuse of villagers’ collectively owned assets, the manipulation of village elections and the suppression of anti-corruption protests. It also offers new descriptive evidence of how recent reforms designed to strengthen the Party's overall leadership in rural governance may have actually facilitated elite capture and grassroots corruption.

Locational Differences of Collective Land and Their Socioeconomic Effects on the Rural Elderly in China’s Pearl River Delta

In recent years, rapid urbanization in China has led to land transformation and unequal social and economic development among rural collective land in different regions. Although there has been considerable research on land development in China, there is a lack of studies on the socioeconomic impacts of unequal collective land development on rural elders. This research investigates collective land support, family support, and social support among the elderly in three types of villages—urban, suburban, and remote—in China’s Pearl River Delta. The findings show that land support retains an important factor for supporting the rural elderly, while family support is in steep decline, and social elderly support offers low coverage. However, land support differs greatly with location, and only urban villages in central locations with high land values are found to provide adequate land support for the rural elderly. The key influential factor of land income has shifted from land quantity to land location, and there now appears to be a need to adjust relevant land, fiscal, and taxation policies for collective land in different locations.

Comparison of Collective-Led and State-Led Land Development in China from the Perspective of Institutional Arrangements: The Case of Guangzhou

The existing literature explains well how dual urbanization promotes land development and spatial expansion in China, but few studies have examined the emergence of state-led and village-led land development by measuring the urban expansion ratio from the perspective of institutional arrangements. To fill this gap, this study examines the spatial pattern and evolution of urban expansion and then explains the institutional dynamics in evolving different spatial forms of land development in Guangzhou. Among the findings of our research, two important points merit special attention. First, this study examines the emergence of collective-led and state-led development in Chinese cities from the perspective of institutions with the support of empirical evidence from Guangzhou. Herein, urban expansion intensity (UEI) was used to improve urban expansion as an evaluation index of urbanization speed. Second, the present study developed a theoretical framework based on land property rights from an institutional perspective to explain the two forms of land development in the dynamic urbanization process. From a broader theoretical perspective, diverse spatial forms of land development in Chinese cities contribute to the understanding of urban land expansion based on an institutional approach. The policy implication of this study is that the speed of urban expansion will gradually slow with the advancement of new urbanization, and growth in collective land in the urban area will gradually decrease. Land redevelopment policies and regulations should be taken into account for collective land in urban areas, which is necessary for sustainable urban development in China.

Regional Integration by Administrative Division Adjustment: City-County Consolidation and Layout of Land Development in China

Regional Integration by Administrative Division Adjustment: City-County Consolidation and Layout of Land Development in China

The coupled relationships between land development and land ownership at China’s urban fringe: A structural equation modeling approach

The rate of land urbanization has grown rapidly in recent decades in China, and a growing body of literature has investigated the driving forces behind it. The dual nature of China’s land ownership system, in which top-down and bottom-up land development form two separate tracks, is frequently cited in these studies. While top-down land development is dominant, bottom-up land development, which has traditionally been overlooked in academic studies, may be equally pivotal for land development in China. This study extends traditional urban economic analyses and demonstrates how land ownership and land development are interconnected in China. This study applies structural equation modeling to data taken from Shenzhen, a city where the two tracks of land development coexist, to estimate the reciprocal relationships between land ownership and land development. The results show that the influence of land ownership on land development is significant and that collective ownership has a positive influence on land development; likewise, land development also influences ownership: land development tends to facilitate the conversion of land from collective to state ownership. The study recommends more tailored policies and strategies targeted toward improving management of collective-owned lands while simultaneously advancing urban redevelopment.

Book review: Peri-Urban China: Land Use, Growth, and Integrated Urban–Rural Development

Peri-Urban China is a study of the characteristics of land-use change in the peri-urban areas of China, and its underlying social and economic driving forces. It adopts a case study approach focused on the three most developed regions of China (Pearl River Delta, Yangtze River Delta, and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region) and its ultimate aim is to unveil how to achieve policies for sustainable land development in China. The theoretical framework employed is based on the new institutional economics, widely used in planning theory to link the functioning of institutions with the concepts of property rights and transaction costs. Each case study relies on a variety of methods of investigation, such as GIS mapping, indices of landscape ecology, and urban planning tools, thus providing suitable comparative understanding of different peri-urban dynamics across the country.

Capital accumulation and urban land development in China: (Re)making Expo Park in Shanghai

This study goes beyond the crisis-based understanding of spatial fix to consider a holistic exploration of capital accumulation and urban land development in association with a mega-event in China. Decoding the event-triggered land banking (tudi chubei) process in the (re)making of Expo Park, it shifts the focus of this land-based accumulation to pre-event relocation and post-event investment attraction. The contributions of this study are twofold. First, this study contributes to the mainstream literature by incorporating the place-based mega-event into the study of spatial fix. Spatial fix through mega-events is enacted through pre-Expo primary land development, which reshapes the built environment to articulate a “higher and better use,” followed by a post-Expo land disposition, which fixes investment to accomplish capital restructuring. Second, this study indicates that state entrepreneurialism offers a more accurate interpretation of the governance of land processes led by mega-events than urban entrepreneurialism, and enriches the literature on state entrepreneurialism by illuminating the ways in which capital accumulation is achieved through land development under this governance paradigm. In the pre-Expo phase, a state-owned urban development corporation (UDC) was established to take charge of land finance. An ad hoc quasi-government in proximity to the central state and on behalf of the municipal official mobilized administrative resources to aid land resumption—tailoring space to squeeze out inefficient accumulation modes. In the post-Expo phase, a restructured municipal state-owned enterprise (SOE) took over responsibilities for land disposition from the state-owned UDC and prioritized central state SOEs over other investors.

Institutional credibility and informal institutions: The case of extralegal land development in China

The credibility of informality has become a fertile frontier in the study of institutions as is evidenced by the Credibility Thesis and its applications. Whereas the preceding contribution by Liu and Zhang (this special issue) examined whether, and if so, under what preconditions informal institutions could be formalized, the current article assesses how informal institutions establish their credibility over time. Focusing on competing informal institutions in a developing context, this article explores the mechanisms through which informal rules cumulate their credibility while challenging the formal ones. This article identifies two fundamental mechanisms that contribute to the increasing credibility of informal rules. First, political bargaining lead to ineffective enforcement of formal institutions and low risk of violation of formal rules; Second, institutional challengers' competition for informal practices ironically facilitates their unorganized coordination and resolves their problems of collective action. The interactions of these two fundamental mechanisms help institutional challengers increase the scale of their informal practice and enhance the credibility of informal rules. This article employs the extralegal land development in Shenzhen, China, as an extreme case. Nearly half of the permanent residents in Shenzhen are living in extralegal houses built on state-owned land by villagers whose rural land has been nationalized by the government. The findings can shed light on the credibility of informal rules in other fields.

The reshaping of land development density through rail transit: The stories of central areas vs. suburbs in Shenzhen, China

The ways in which urban rail transit influences land development have been extensively studied for cities in the United States and Europe; studies from less-developed countries are limited. However, the influences of rail transit on land development in developing countries such as China have drawn much scholarly attention in recent years, in part due to the unprecedented speed and scale of its urbanization and development of rail systems. The main research questions of the present study are whether rail transit attracts new developments or redevelopment to areas surrounding stations and whether the city-shaping ability of rail transit differs between central areas and suburbs. Our study focused on Shenzhen, one of the most quickly urbanizing areas in China. We utilized land parcel data in Shenzhen collected in two different years and applied multiple linear regressions with interactive terms to compare the effect of rail transit stations on land development by region (i.e., central areas vs. suburbs). The evidence supported our hypothesis that the densifying of land development brought on by rail transit is more prominent in already developed central areas than in low-density suburbs. Our research findings help illuminate the interactive relationships between transportation and land development in China; this study also contributes to the broader discussion of sustainable urbanization.

Is Urban Land Development Driven by Economic Development or Fiscal Revenue Stimuli in China?

Since the reform and opening-up, urban land development in China mainland has been increasing dramatically with significant regional differences. Using the panel data of municipal districts in 246 cities at the prefectural or higher levels in Chinese mainland from 2004 to 2014, based on the analysis of the differences in land development intensity in municipal districts, a model of factors affecting land development is built to verify whether the urban land development is driven by economic development or fiscal revenue from the perspectives of economic development and fiscal revenue. The conclusions are as follows: first, the intensity of land development varies significantly among municipal districts. The difference in the intensity of land development increases with the increase of city scale. The difference in the intensity of land development in central China is lower than that in eastern and western China. Second, the primary factors affecting the intensity of urban land development are economic growth, population urbanization, and population density. Finally, land transfer revenues also drive the land development in cities at the prefectural or higher levels to a considerable extent, which is proposed as “land finance” (local governments rely on the sale of land use rights to obtain extra-budgetary income to maintain local fiscal expenditure) in the literature.

Land ownership and the likelihood of land development at the urban fringe: The case of Shenzhen, China

Land development results from a combination of many natural and social drivers. In China, the system of dual land ownership, in which lands are owned either by the state or by a collective, is a unique factor that affects land development, especially during the urbanization process as collective-owned rural land at the urban fringe is rapidly developed for urban uses. This land development process often follows two tracks: 1) Through land expropriation, the government becomes the owner of the land and performs primary land development. 2) Villagers maintain their ownership of the land collectively and convert their undeveloped land into built-up land by themselves rather than having their land expropriated by the government. For collective-owned rural land, the change of land ownership could have important implications for its development process and outcomes. This paper explores the potential relationships between land ownership change and land development at the urban fringe in China. We construct a logistic regression model to determine whether or not land ownership change (i.e., collective-to-state ownership conversion) is correlated with land development. We focus on Shenzhen, China because it has experienced extremely rapid urbanization, and its dual land structure is very notable. We find that in Shenzhen, lands that retained collective ownership are more likely to be developed than those transferred to state ownership, and we offer possible explanations for this finding. Our research will help planners and practitioners better understand the causes, driving forces, and processes of land development in China and contribute to the broader discussion of sustainable urbanization.

Spatiotemporal analysis of land development in transitional China

This study investigates three types of land development in China, land for cities and towns, stand-alone industrial sites, and space devoted to transportation. Relying on shift-share analysis, spatial filtering and geographically weighted regressions, we find that the spatial patterns and underlying determinants of China's construction boom vary across subcategories and periods. City and town land development follows the administrative hierarchy, as it is especially pronounced in provincial capitals and centrally administrated municipalities, and is largely dependent on urbanization, passenger transport, and fixed assets investment. The proliferation of stand-alone industrial areas is mainly driven by the expansion of foreign direct investment, industrial adjustment, and the capacity of freight transport. Transportation land development is determined by the development of railway and highway systems as well as local economic development. Temporally, our results suggest that land development and its agglomeration accelerated from 1998 to 2002 to 2003–2008. Also, globalization had more influence during 1998–2002, whereas the role of decentralization and marketization became more significant in the period of 2003–2008.

Examining the influence of the implementation of Major Function-oriented Zones on built-up area expansion in China

China had implemented the national strategies for Major Function-oriented Zones (MFOZs) to realize the goal of national sustainable development since 2010. This study analyzed and compared spatio-temporal characteristics and differences in built-up area for China’s MFOZs using a China’ s Land Use Database (CLUD) derived from high-resolution remotely sensed images in the periods of 2000–2010 and 2010–2013. To sum up: (1) The percentage of built-up area in each of the MFOZs was significantly different, revealing the gradient feature of national land development based on the distribution of the main functions. (2) Annual growth in built-up area in optimal development zones (ODZs) decreased significantly during 2010–2013 compared with the period 2000–2010, while annual growth in built-up area in key development zones (KDZs), agricultural production zones (APZs) and key ecological function zones (KEFZs) increased significantly. (3) In ODZs, the average annual increase in built-up area in the Yangtze River Delta region was significantly higher than in other regions; the average area increase and rate of increase of built-up area in KDZs was faster in the western region than in other regions; average annual area growth of built-up area in APZs in the northeast, central and western regions was twice as high as the previous decade on average; the annual rate of change and increase in the dynamic degree of built-up area were most notable in KEFZs in the central region. (4) The spatial pattern and characteristics of built-up area expansions in the period 2010–2013 reflected the gradient feature of the plan for MFOZs. But the rate of increase locally in built-up area in ODZs, APZs and KEFZs is fast, so the effective measures must be adopted in the implementation of national and regional policies. The conclusions indicated these methods and results were meaningful for future regulation strategies in optimizing national land development in China.

To Build Outward or Upward? The Spatial Pattern of Urban Land Development in China

This paper studies the determinants of the spatial pattern of urban land development. Our study is motivated by an interesting fact observed in the past decade, the fact that the fastest-growing Chinese cities have undergone outward expansion of urban land development with relatively low use intensity. We link this pattern with the career concerns of local leaders who act as city developers. We first develop a theoretical model to demonstrate how a city leader whose career advancement depends on city economic growth chooses the spatial pattern of urban land development. Two major testable predications are derived. First, city leaders with high career incentives are more likely to expand the city outward in order to boost land sale revenues for financing public infrastructure and enhancing economic growth. Second, the average use intensity of newly developed land is lower for city leaders with stronger career incentives due to the trade-off between a city’s upward and outward expansion. We test the theory using a large dataset of residential land transactions matched with city leaders from 2000 to 2012. We find robust evidence consistent with the predictions of our model.

Modes of land development in Shanghai

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.

Planning for social inclusion: The impact of socioeconomic inequities on the informal development of farmland in suburban Beijing

Informal development on farmland is not only a major problem facing thousands of people, but also a major challenge to land use planning. In the rapidly growing literature on informal land development in China, most authors claim that ambiguous property rights and the dual land tenure system are the primary factors involved. As a result, existing state-led land use planning responses to informal development are solely focused on strengthening the legal regulation of land development. This paper challenges this approach, on the basis of the theory of urban informality. By examining many illegal gated communities in suburban Beijing, the paper argues that the informal development of farmland on the urban fringe is the result of local grassroots groups spontaneously responding to socioeconomic inequities in the context of transition to a market economy. These inequities mainly concern distributive inequity, procedural inequity and contextual inequity in relation to land use. It appears that the ongoing market-oriented initiatives of the state government could worsen informal land development unless these socioeconomic inequalities at the local level are tackled. The growing civil society is another change to the state's control of informal land development in China's cities. A new land use planning system which has more concern for social inclusion rather than focusing on centralized control is imperative in China.