Land Rural Development Research Articles

The Effect of Agricultural Zoning on Rural Residential Property Values: An Application to Ontario's Greenbelt

Although previous studies on property value effects of land use policies have focused primarily on agricultural properties and on residential properties in close proximity to preserved areas, this paper examines for the effect on rural residential property values within the preserved area. This effect is examined in the context of Ontario's Greenbelt legislation, which prohibits urban development of rural land within a large area around the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). This preserved area includes not only agricultural properties but also a substantial amount of rural residential properties due to proximity to the GTA. With the amenity value that rural residential properties derive from the surrounding rural landscape, the imposed development restrictions that permanently preserve this open space are anticipated to increase the values of these properties. This expectation is confirmed by the results of a hedonic approach, which indicate a positive effect on the values of rural residential properties within the Greenbelt's boundary. This effect is found to be greater for properties with more surrounding open space and those that are relatively closer to the GTA. These results also provide an estimate of the property value impact of converting all surrounding developable open space to permanently preserved open space.

Small Property, Big Market: A Focal Point Explanation

This article investigates the formation and operation of a market of informal real estate in China, referred to by the term “small property” (xiaochanquan), as their property rights are “smaller” (weaker) than those of the “big” (formal) property market. In the city of Shenzhen, which experienced exponential population growth from 300,000 to more than ten million between 1978 and 2010 as the first experimental site of China's market reforms, almost half of the buildings are small-property constructions. These illegal buildings, which lack legal titles and are concentrated in 320 intra-city villages, house most of the 8 million migrant workers in Shenzhen and are the main source of livelihood of the more than 300,000 local villagers. The underlying question is how to coordinate people's behaviors in the absence of centralized law. A problem of coordination arises when players have to combine their actions in a certain way among multiple possibilities. In other words, coordination games have multiple equilibria, and therefore the payoffs alone do not determine the behavioral outcome. Instead, the final outcome depends on the specific social settings and individual participants involved, leaving room for less concrete variables, such as history and politics, to impact individuals' choices. Nobel Laureate Thomas Schelling first observed that, in situations requiring coordination, anything that makes salient one behavioral means of coordinating tends to produce self-fulfilling expectations that then lead to the occurrence of that result. This salient solution is called a focal point. The essential idea of the focal point is that the intrinsic magnetism of particular outcomes makes them qualitatively differentiable from the continuum of possible alternatives. Set against the backdrop and context of China's market transition, this research discovers that the political, legal, and economic transition in Shenzhen made rural land development and transfer the focal point, despite its illegality. This focal point coordinates players' expectations to converge on the same equilibrium in the formation and operation of the small-property market. I model the formation of the small-property market as an Assurance Game among social entrepreneurs in Shenzhen, the demolition risk as a Hawk-Dove Game between the Shenzhen government and farmers, and contract risk as a Hawk-Dove Game between a buyer and a seller. This research enriches our understanding of market institutions by applying up-todate insights from coordination games and focal point theory. It also contributes a significant real world example to the theories of coordination games and focal points, most of which are based on laboratory experiments.

Official relocation and self-help development: Three housing strategies under ambiguous property rights in China’s rural land development

The recent trend to develop rural land in western China has resulted in the large-scale relocation of villagers. It has also given rise to self-help development of housing. By examining long-established research on both formal urban development and informal village settlements, this study examines self-built housing, collective-endorsed housing and urban relocation housing in one western Chinese village. Their coexistence was made possible by ambiguities in property rights. The state–collective divide and the urban–rural dichotomy in property rights were restructured in land development, and villagers were able to use various means to take advantage of transitional, favourable deals to gain short- or long-term returns. Specifically, self-developed housing met market demands and traditional lifestyles, but witnessed a gap between de jure and de facto property rights and could not be easily formalised, whereas officially sanctioned relocation provided long-term homeownership but with ambiguous de jure property rights and failed to fully integrate villagers into urban neighbourhoods. To a lesser extent, collective endorsement added to the legitimacy of self-help development.

Natural resource management in an energy‐constrained future in the United States

ABSTRACTThe plenary theme at the 2008 annual conference of The Wildlife Society was, “Thriving within limits: toward a scenario of hope.” Wildlife professionals are still grappling with how wildlife management relates to sustainability as global limits, especially energy, become more obvious in affecting resource management. “Sustainability” as used in this paper is derived from the commonly cited, Brundtland Report definition of sustainable development as, “…development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Further, it is activity that simultaneously addresses the interlinked aspects of economy, environment, and social well‐being. To be effective in the future, natural resources agencies and organizations (NGOs) will be compelled to 1) reduce energy use by increasing efficiency of unavoidable uses and reducing optional energy uses; 2) anticipate how energy costs will affect resource use by various stakeholders; and 3) mitigate climate change by reducing combustion processes and thereby greenhouse gases. Because of their fundamental missions, natural resource entities have a special obligation to employ exemplary conservation practices. Challenges are great, but opportunities are significant. Higher fuel costs will constrain some management practices, but may limit further development of more rural and underdeveloped lands, thereby reducing habitat fragmentation and often wildlife damage complaints. Will energy costs promote smaller vehicles, reduction of some management practices, greater focus on recreational areas closer to population centers, consolidation of offices with other entities, and more video‐conferencing of meetings? Will wildlife management be effectively integrated into landscapes where energy crops are produced along with food and where “life‐cycle analysis” measures the full ecological footprint of land management? Agencies and NGOs can partner with stakeholders to design landscape use that is more sustainable (less pollution, conserving of energy and soil, more biologically diverse), provides better connections to nature, and enhances overall resource conservation. Educational institutions have a critical role because they are instrumental in preparing future resource managers. © 2014 The Wildlife Society. © 2014 The Wildlife Society.

State Fragmentation and Rights Contestation: Rural Land Development Rights in China

AbstractThe functionalist reasoning of institutional changes builds on individual rationality and explains institutional changes from the demand side. While insightful, a comprehensive understanding also needs to take into account the supply side. The state, as the ultimate supplier of institutional changes, plays the pivotal role of agency; therefore, its willingness and ability decide how such regime change occurs and what particular form the new regime takes. Since the mid‐1990s, the Chinese economy has embarked on a path of rapid industrialization and urbanization. The contestation over rural land development rights in China offers an excellent case to illuminate the importance of state agency in institutional changes. Drawing on case studies in China's three major urbanizing regions, this article analyzes how villages brought their own land directly to the land market and reaped handsome profits. We argue that the three successful cases, Nanhai in Guangdong, Kunshan in Jiangsu and Zhenggezhuang in Beijing, all represent a product of active agency on the supply side. The Chinese state's fragmented authority provides a favorable institutional environment for such changes.

국토계획법에 의한 농촌 토지 이용관리의 실효성 평가

In 2003, The National Land Use and Planning (NLUP Act) was enacted unifying two old laws; The Urban Planning enacted in 1962 and The National Land Use and Management enacted in 1972. One of main reasons of unifying two acts was to extend urban planning-based development systems to rural areas for preventing uncontrolled urban sprawl in rural areas and enhancing or settlling plan-based land use system in rural areas. This paper is conducted with the following specific objectives: i) to critically review the contents of NLUP Act in terms of rational rural land use planning; ii) to evaluate plan-based land use practices in rural area by NLUP Act; iii) to appraise performance level for prevention against unplanned development activities in rural areas by NLUP Act. To accomplish these objectives, we surveyed actural state of rural land use and development system by the new act in two case study areas. Ansung city in Gyeongi province as an urban sprawl region and Hamyang county in Gyeongnam Province as a remote rural area. Study results ascertained that the new act can not effectively control rural land use and not prevent over-use of agricultural land in the positive and effective ways because of followering three points.

Modeling exurban development near Washington, DC, USA: comparison of a pattern-based model and a spatially-explicit econometric model

The development of private rural lands can significantly fragment landscapes, with potentially negative consequences on ecosystem services. Models of land-use trends beyond the urban fringe are therefore useful for developing policy to manage these environmental effects. However, land-use change models have been primarily applied in urban environments, and it is unclear whether they can adequately predict exurban growth. This study compared the ability of two urban growth models to project exurban development in north-central Virginia and western Maryland over a 24-year period. Pattern-based urban growth models (such as SLEUTH) are widely used, but largely mimic patterns that emerge from historic conditions rather than allowing landowner decision-making to project change. In contrast, spatially-explicit econometric models (such as the complementary log–log hazard assessed in this study) model landowner choices as profit-maximizing behavior subject to market and regulatory constraints. We evaluated the two raster-based models by comparing model predictions to observed exurban conversion at pixel and county scales. The SLEUTH model was more successful at matching the total amount of new growth at the county scale than it was at the pixel scale, suggesting its most appropriate use in exurban areas is as a blunt instrument to forewarn potential coarse-scale losses of natural resources. The econometric model performed significantly better than SLEUTH at both scales, although it was not completely successful in fulfilling its promise of projecting changes that were sensitive to policy. The lack of significance of some policy variables may have resulted from insufficient variation in drivers over our study area or time period, but also suggests that drivers of land use change in exurban environments may differ from those identified for urban areas.

Landscape requirements of a primate population in a human-dominated environment

IntroductionAs urban and rural land development become widespread features of the global landscape so an understanding of the landscape requirements of displaced and isolated wildlife species becomes increasingly important for conservation planning. In the Cape Peninsula, South Africa, rapid human population growth, and the associated urban and rural land transformation, threatens the sustainability of the local chacma baboon population. Here we analyse spatial data collected from nine of the 12 extant troops to determine their population-level landscape requirements. We use hurdle models to ascertain the key landscape features influencing baboon occurrence and abundance patterns on two hierarchical spatial scales.ResultsBoth spatial scales produced similar results that were ecologically reliable and interpretable. The models indicated that baboons were more likely to occur, and be more abundant, at low altitudes, on steep slopes and in human-modified habitats. The combination of these landscape variables provides baboons with access to the best quality natural and anthropogenic food sources in close proximity to one another and suitable sleeping sites. Surface water did not emerge as an influential landscape feature presumably as the area is not water stressed.ConclusionsThe model results indicate that land development in the Cape Peninsula has pushed baboons into increasingly marginal natural habitat while simultaneously providing them with predictable and easily accessible food sources in human-modified habitats. The resultant spatial competition between humans and baboons explains the high levels of human-baboon conflict and further erosion of the remaining land fragments is predicted to exacerbate competition. This study demonstrates how the quantification of animal landscape requirements can provide a mechanism for identifying priority conservation areas at the human-wildlife interface.

Trajectories of land acquisition and enclosure: development schemes, virtual land grabs, and green acquisitions in Indonesia's Outer Islands

While the size and speculative nature of land transactions in the wake of energy, food and climate crises have surprised observers, the reasons for partial implementation of many land developments remain largely unexamined. This contribution investigates trajectories of land acquisition and enclosure by analyzing four acquisition processes in Indonesia – those associated with rice, oil palm, Jatropha and carbon sequestration – considering their implications for comparative studies elsewhere. The paper finds that current patterns of land usechange represent a continuation of ongoing land transformation processes. Itdescribes the logic leading to partial realization of large-scale schemes. Highlighting the importance of interactions between formal and vernacular rural land development processes, the essay concludes that many large-scale schemes are better understood as virtual land acquisitions.

Resolving Land Use Disputes in China

This article investigates how traditional methods by which citizens lodge complaints, known as petitions, against public actions are being employed and adapted to China’s rapid and sustained progress towards becoming an industrial and urban society. The article explains how China’s Ministry of Land and Resources has responded to a growing number of petitions and the apparent increased demand for public input into the development of urban and rural lands. The conclusion identifies several key areas that demonstrate how regulatory reforms enacted by the Ministry of Land and Resources regarding citizen complaints, that is, petitions, can assist in fostering greater public input in land use planning and development in China.

The politics of land reforms in Malawi: The case of the Community Based Rural Land Development Programme (CBRLDP)

AbstractThe implementation experiences of the CBRLDP demonstrate that the design, reform and implementation of pro‐poor institutional arrangements are not merely a technical or managerial matter but a profoundly political exercise. This is underscored by the sheer determination of stakeholders engaged with the CBRLDP to shift the burden of the reforms elsewhere by taking recourse mainly to informal institutions within the framework of the evolving institutional arrangements governing land ownership and use. In addition, the question of citizenship based on the notion of autochthony is invoked by communities with excess land to the extent that new settlers have to contend with the constant threat that their land is open to contestation by the natives. The main argument of this paper therefore is that these experiences have greatly undermined the prospects of the CBRLDP to generate valuable lessons as a potential blueprint for sustainable land reform across the country and for further fine‐tuning the draft land legislative framework. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Socioeconomic Changes and Forestland Development: Commonalities and Distinctions between the Eastern and Western United States

Abstract Impacts of rural land development on natural resources in the United States have been well documented and research on rural land development provides important inputs to land conservation policy and program development. Although numerous land-use studies have been completed for the western and eastern states, still lacking is a single study examining changes in population, housing, and land development in the two regions. To provide context for natural resource and land conservation programs and policies, we quantify recent and long-term changes in population and housing, rural development rates, and land-use transitions involving forests for the eastern and western regions. Relative to the West, the East has a more evenly distributed population and has experienced greater population increases, rates of land development, and forestland conversion. We discuss these patterns of population growth and land development in the context of natural resource policies and forestland goods and services.

Integrated assessment of rural lands for sustainable development using MicroLEIS DSS in West Azerbaijan, Iran

MicroLEIS, a support system for agro-ecological land evaluations, can be used to assess soil quality and land use planning. Although this system was developed to assist in solving agro-ecological problems in the Mediterranean region, MicroLEIS is also useful in semi-arid regions, such as Iran, where modern land evaluation technologies are rarely used. Land attributes considered in MicroLEIS include site/soil, climate and crop/management factors. Additionally, MicroLEIS contains software packages for data storage, including SDBm plus, CDBm and MDBm. Two procedures that promote sustainable agriculture include land use planning and farm level management based on soil assessments. Implementing recommendations from agro-ecological land evaluations that protect soil and prevent land degradation may enhance sustainable development of rural land. To enhance sustainable development, MicroLEIS successfully classified the study area as optimal or marginal agricultural land and related land use suitability to soil type, erosion risk and vulnerability. In summary, results revealed that decision support systems (e.g. MicroLEIS) are exceptional tools for obtaining successful and reliable information related to agriculture, food and the environment. Consequently, sustainable development can be achieved with the use of MicroLEIS and subsequent implementation of recommendations.

Natural Groundwater Recharge Response to Urbanization: Vermillion River Watershed, Minnesota

Urban development of rural land can be a concern for water resources and wildlife. The quantity and quality of surface water runoff and groundwater recharge can be significantly affected by urbanization. Base flow in streams and cold-water habitat, e.g., for trout, depend on groundwater. If water recharge to aquifers is reduced, and surface runoff is increased, streamflow and cold-water habitat can be adversely affected. An investigation of the changes to groundwater recharge resulting from the urbanization of a rural/natural area in the Vermillion River watershed in Minnesota was conducted. Well established principles and relationships for the estimation of infiltration (Soil Conservation Service (SCS) and Green-Ampt (GA) methods] and evapotranspiration [Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)-56 Penman-Monteith) were applied, and percolation or groundwater recharge was determined using a water budget approach. The relationships were assembled in three models called the FAO-SCS, the FAO-GA, and the GA models. Four scenarios of land development representing progressive stages of urbanization (past, present, plus 50years, and plus 100years) were developed and groundwater recharge was simulated for each scenario from predevelopment to fully developed. In 2005, about 60% of the 6.78km2(1,675acres) watershed of a tributary to the Vermillion River was undeveloped agricultural and natural land, and about 40% was developed urban residential and commercial land. Model estimates of groundwater recharge under the 2005 land-use conditions ranged from 12 to 24% of 829mm of annual precipitation. The full urban development of the study site would result in a decrease of groundwater recharge to a range of 9 to 14% of precipitation. To make this projection, the impervious areas were raised from an average of 18% for the present scenario to an average of 36%. The case study shows that the increase of 18% in impervious area may decrease the recharge by about 20 to 40% of its present value. A change of this magnitude will substantially affect the water supply to the aquifer which discharges into the Vermillion River which is classified as a cold-water (trout) stream.

The local politics of the global countryside: boosterism, aspirational ruralism and the contested reconstitution of Queenstown, New Zealand

This paper examines the local politics through which the reconstitution of rural localities under globalization is advanced and contested, with particular reference to the impact of international amenity migration. It contends that as globalization proceeds not by domination but by hybridization and negotiation, local politics is critical as the sphere in which the outcomes of globalization processes are interpreted and contested. The paper examines the case study of Queenstown Lakes district in South Island, New Zealand, as a locality that has experienced significant transformation through engagement with globalization processes. These include high levels of international amenity in-migration, substantial overseas investment in property, commerce and construction projects, and an increasing volume of international tourists. Collectively, these processes have contributed to rapid population growth and intensive pressure for the development of rural land in the area. As detailed in the paper, land use planning became the dominant issue in local politics, with conflict between groups informed by ‘boosterist’ and ‘environmentalist’ stand-points, as well as the ‘aspirational ruralism’ of amenity in-migrants. Although locally-grounded, the conflict engaged trans-local actors and networks and transgressed space and scale, thus becoming itself an expression of globalization.

An Examination of the Major Assumptions in the Design of Malawi's Community Based Rural Land Development Project (CBRLDP)

Malawi's Community Based Rural Land Development Project (CBRLDP) was rolled out in July 2004 as an effort to alleviate rural poverty through increasing access to land after studies had shown that land shortage was a key contributor to poverty. Through grants, the landless and land-poor are empowered to buy land from private landowners on ‘willing seller, willing buyer’ terms. This entails relocating to where such land is available, which may not be within the same district. Currently in its pilot phase the project is being implemented in four districts in the southern region: Mangochi, Machinga, Mulanje and Thyolo. Several important assumptions were made in the design of the project. This article examines these assumptions against the reality on the ground and the experience of beneficiaries.

Past and projected rural land conversion in the US at state, regional, and national levels

The developed land area of the US increased by 14.2 million hectares between 1982 and 2003. Along with a projected US population increase to more than 360 million individuals by 2030 is an expected continuation of expanding rural land development. Related to population growth, rural land development and the associated loss of rural open space are expected to have a number of social, economic, and ecological implications. To gain greater insight into land development patterns, we used US Census Bureau and National Resources Inventory data to quantify per-housing-unit rates of land development during recent decades and to model future land development to 2030 for states and regions in the US. Based on these data, 0.50 ha of additional land were developed for each additional housing unit in the US. The numbers of hectares of newly developed land per additional housing unit were greatest in the South Central and Great Plains regions and least in the Pacific Coast and Rocky Mountain regions of the country. Combining population projections and trends in people per housing unit with development indices, we projected that developed area in the US will increase by 22 million hectares between 2003 and 2030, with the greatest absolute increases projected to occur in the Southeast and South Central regions of the US. We used sensitivity analysis to examine the impacts of changes in population migration patterns and per housing unit development patterns on increases in projected developed area.

Population Growth and Land Use Dynamics along Urban–Rural Gradient

In this study we apply a spatial conditional logit model to determine factors influencing land cover change in three contiguous counties in West Georgia between 1992 and 2001 using point (pixel) based observations of land characteristics. We found that accessibility to population and population growth affect not only development of rural lands and transition between agricultural and forestry uses, but also influence changes between forest types. The model could be used to project land use–land cover change at watershed or subwatershed level and thus serve as a valuable tool for county and city planners.

The Rise of Agrarian Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics: Agricultural Modernization, Agribusiness and Collective Land Rights

In what forms are agribusinesses entering agriculture and interacting with farmers? How are land, labor and capital now controlled by corporate and individual actors, and then organized into agricultural production? How does such control and organization shape the relationships between the actors? In this article we argue that agrarian capitalism is expanding in China. The means of production, such as capital and land, are increasingly controlled by agribusiness, while direct producers increasingly sell their labor for a living. We document various forms in which agribusiness companies are conducting transactions with individual agricultural producers. We also argue that China's unique system of land rights featuring collective ownership but individualized usage rights has acted as a powerful force in shaping interactions between agribusiness and direct producers. It provides farmers with a source of economic income and political bargaining power, and restricts corporate actors from dispossessing farmers of their land. We find strong norms protecting farmers' collective land rights in the agricultural sector, contrary to the received wisdom about weak protection of land rights in China. In the rest of the paper, we first review the policy context in which this transformation has taken place. Next we introduce our method of data collection, summarize the five forms of agribusiness-farmer interaction found in our study, and analyze each of the five forms in depth. We conclude with a discussion of the causes and characteristics of the rise of agrarian capitalism, with a focus on the role of the land rights system.

Property Tax Policy and Land-Use Change

In this study, we analyze the effect of property taxes on changes between agricultural, forestry, Conservation Reserve Program, and developed land uses in Louisiana. We estimate a random parameters logit model of land-use conversion from the National Resources Inventory plot data. Our results indicate that land-use changes are inelastic with respect to property taxes. Simulation shows that current use valuation policy, while slowing down development of rural lands, also affects changes between rural land uses. <i>(JEL Q15, H23)</i>