Urban Land System Research Articles

Encountering the state through legal tenure security: Perspectives from a low income resettlement scheme in urban India

Tenure security systems—which determine who lives where and under what terms and conditions—are processes of governance that make and effect the relationship between those who confer tenure security and those on who tenure security is conferred. Yet, in dominant analyses of land and housing tenure security, and in policy recommendations for property rights and legal tenure security in developing countries, governance implications are overlooked in favour of analyses of the relative merits of different tenure systems mainly in terms of security, livelihood and economic impact. Using interview data and observations from a resettlement scheme in Ahmedabad, India, this paper empirically examines citizen-state relations in the context of a major shift from de facto (in practice) to legal tenure security and asks how do citizens who have recently come to live under legal tenure security encounter the state and make sense of it. I find a bureaucracy of tenure security that exerts control over low income citizens largely through fear. However, such control is incomplete and acts of resistance suggest an emerging ‘paralegal’ space to renegotiate tenure rules. I conclude by examining the findings through a conceptual framework that explains the relationship between state power and legal tenure security. I also discuss the need for greater scrutiny of the political effects of urban land and housing tenure systems on poor people.

The Role of Villages and Townships in Informal Land Development in China: An Investigation on the City Fringe of Beijing

The past decades have witnessed a number of informal land developments on the urban fringe in China although many strict state regulations have been made to control this. The dual urban rural land system is widely believed to be one major determinant of informal developments in the existing literature. However, the important role of local villages and townships are often neglected. This paper aims to shed light on this by looking at the gated informal housing communities in Beijing as a case study. It investigates the role of villages and townships in informal land development and the conflicts of interest that arise with state regulations in the context of political decentralization. The results of analysis show that township governments have an ambivalent attitude or even give tacit approval to informal land development in villages since these informal developments actually bring economic benefits to local villagers and themselves. The situation seems to be worse as townships have poor fiscal capacity and a growing administrative responsibility for improvement of local development in the context of decentralization. Villages are keen to capture economic benefits from informal land development with help from private developers. As a result, a local, informal coalition between townships, villages, and private developers emerged at the grass roots level. This presents a major challenge to the state regulations designed for sustainable urban growth management.

The Impact of Urban Land Reserve System on House Prices

In recent years of China, land reserve system has become a vital measure of urban land system reform, it also has been a hotspot of the reform for real state territory. Starting from the land reserve, this paper will research the changes of house prices after land reserve occurs, and reveal how the land reserve makes effect on house price.

Land Leasing and Local Public Finance in China’s Regional Development: Evidence from Prefecture-level Cities

By analysing the evolution of local governments’ roles in different periods of China’s growth in transition, this paper explores local fiscal incentives to use subsidised land and infrastructure as key instruments in regional competition for manufacturing investment since the mid 1990s. Local land development behaviour is related to China’s current land use institutions and intergovernmental arrangements. On the basis of panel data covering prefectural-level cities from 1999 to 2003, the paper empirically identifies and compares the fiscal impacts of different forms of land leasing (by negotiation versus by auction/tender). Policy implications are drawn from this analysis, for the further reform of China’s urban land system and fiscal institutions.

Urban Electric Load Forecasting Using Combined Cellular Automata

With the high-speed economic development in China, the transition of structural function in the urban land system highly effects the development of the urban electric load. Forecasting the urban electric load accurately is the foundation of decision making scientifically for the development and planning of the urban power grid in China. This paper improves the decision method of Transition Matrices of Land Use and Cover Change though integrating Cellular Automation with Markov Model firstly. Then, the combined cellular automation model is used to simulate the urban land function evolvement and forecast the land functions in the future as the start point for electric load forecasting. Considering the changes of urban land functions, electric load density and simultaneity factor, the urban electric load forecasting model is proposed. The model validation is performed by comparing model predictions with the load data and error analysis of different load forecasting methods though case study. The results obtained bear out the accuracy of the adopted methodology for urban load forecasting. Finally, some reasonable suggestions for the improvement of the forecast are given and the future work is raised.

Possibilities for transformation of the urban land management in Serbia

The paper presents possibilities for establishment of a new market-based concept of the urban land management in Serbia in the period of transition. Urban land system and land policy are very important factors for competitiveness of cities in Serbia and initiating changes in this field is a necessity. The article discusses an option for privatization of urban public land and possible establishment and inclusion of leasehold land. Some open questions concerning the choice of the urban land system concept are considered, the possibility of urban land privatization and possibility for the establishment of leasehold of urban public land in Serbia. The paper concludes that there is a lack of political will to fairly solve problems of urban land reforms under the new market conditions. Some current research options suggested a reform based on privatization of public urban land, but there was no research on other options (leasehold for the majority of public land).

Evaluation of the current urban land system in Serbia

A preliminary evaluation of the current urban land system is presented in the article together with the instruments of land policy in Serbia. It is concluded that due to the limitations of the current regulation it will be impossible in the future to apply market principles in the urban land policy (supply and demand of land, land capitalization, investment efficiency, et al.). Based on the estimation that the urban land system and land policy are key factors of competitiveness between regions and towns in Serbia, it is necessary to initiate changes in this field. A comparative analysis of the elements of the current urban land system in Serbia has been carried out in relation to two market systems: (a) with dominant private ownership of urban land (neoliberal approach) and (b) with dominant public ownership of urban land (Scandinavian approach) whose findings can be a basis for further study of the new system in Serbia. .

Effects of Urban Land Supply Policy on Real Estate in China: An Econometric Analysis

Since 2005, the Chinese government has frequently strengthened controls on the real estate market. Land supply policy was included in the system of state macro-control on the real estate market and state economic development. This paper examines the following issues after analyzing the panel data of Yunnan Province and other provinces of China. (1) Does land supply have significant effects on the real estate market after more than ten years of urban land reforms? (2) Which land supply policy affected the real estate market in China? (3) Does it affect the real estate market and macro-economic control of China's existing land supply policy? The main conclusions of the paper are: (1) Land supply policy has a significant impact on the real estate market with the deepening of China's urban land system reform and the development of the land market. (2) China's land supply policy, as a powerful macro-control tool, has an impact on the real estate market under the government's monopoly. (3) The effects of the land tenure and use reform can mainly be seen in the land supply quota and the extent to which the market-driven supply effects the real estate market.

Objects in mirror are closer than they appear: Reflections on Seeing the State (S. Corbridge, G. Williams, M. Srivastava, and R. Véron)

Tenure security systems—which determine who lives where and under what terms and conditions—are processes of governance that make and effect the relationship between those who confer tenure security and those on who tenure security is conferred. Yet, in dominant analyses of land and housing tenure security, and in policy recommendations for property rights and legal tenure security in developing countries, governance implications are overlooked in favour of analyses of the relative merits of different tenure systems mainly in terms of security, livelihood and economic impact. Using interview data and observations from a resettlement scheme in Ahmedabad, India, this paper empirically examines citizen-state relations in the context of a major shift from de facto (in practice) to legal tenure security and asks how do citizens who have recently come to live under legal tenure security encounter the state and make sense of it. I find a bureaucracy of tenure security that exerts control over low income citizens largely through fear. However, such control is incomplete and acts of resistance suggest an emerging ‘paralegal’ space to renegotiate tenure rules. I conclude by examining the findings through a conceptual framework that explains the relationship between state power and legal tenure security. I also discuss the need for greater scrutiny of the political effects of urban land and housing tenure systems on poor people.

Economic Reform in the Urban Land System in China

The past decade has witnessed a mass change in urban physical structure in major Chinese cities. Such changes could not have been realized without the implementation of economic reform in the urban land system. However, the economic reform measures undertaken in the urban land economy are only partial and gradual. The old socialist allocation system of land for both private and public land users still exists and in some cases such allocation exceeds the market system in terms of land granted. The pricing system of urban land is still not truly competitive as in most cases land users obtain land by means of private treaty grant with the relevant government department. Despite all these weakness in the economic reform measures, the land market in Shanghai, as well as other major cities, seems to have begun a rationalization process with less competitive land uses reallocated to the urban periphery, according to land economics principles. This paper tries to argue that under certain conditions, such as active market activities with open information on transaction details, such a partial economic reform programme could bring initial success to the authority, which will further speed up the gradual reform process.

Land and housing policy in Chinese urban development, 1976–86

A brief consideration of how urban land and housing policy has been affected by shifts in Chinese development strategy since 1949 forms a useful backdrop against which to view current policies and practice. A programme of co‐ordinated land and housing development in the cities was often relegated during the 1950s and 1960s by priorities in production. The body of the paper outlines the administrative arrangements for co‐ordinating land and housing development at the level of the urban municipality. Then the approach during the last decade is examined, followed by the changes introduced with readjustment in the spheres of housing supply, tenure and allocation. In a concluding note mention is made of pending reforms to the urban land and housing systems that were under active consideration at the time of writing.