Urban Development in China under the Institution of Land Rights
Routledge Advances in Regional Economics, Science and Policy Series

How have the development and redevelopment of China?s cities since the early 1950s transformed the settlements and fortunes of a fifth of the world?s population? Rapid urbanization since the 1980s has changed the nation from a rural society to an urban one, marking it as one of the most significant transformations in history. As a country with severe land scarcity, land resources are intensively contested for during urbanization under the new regime of marketization. This book focuses on the impact of the institution of land rights that have transitioned from private ownership to socialist state ownership, and subsequently to public land leasing in the urban domain, and to collective ownership in rural areas.

In the context of defining the relationship between the state and the market, the gradualist transition of land rights gives rise to intriguing processes of place-making. The elaboration of these processes will engage several revealing conceptual notions: land as a means of production, land commodification, ambiguous land rights, incomplete land rights, trading land use rights for land development rights, institutional uncertainty, land rent seeking and dissipating, local developmental state, danwei-enterprises, and more. The newly created landed interests are embedded intricately within the urban spatial structure.

This book would especially be of interest to scholars interested in developmental economics, urban planning, geography, public policies, public management, and sociology, and also practitioners focusing on development and planning.

1. Land Rights as an Institution for Urban Development 2. Land as a Means of Production: Urban and Rural Changes without Market Mechanisms Prior to 1978 3. Restoration of Land as Assets: Genesis of a Market of Land Leasehold 4. Land Markets in the Making: A Dual Land Market and Land Rent Seeking 5. Urban Restructuring along with a Transitional Institution of Land Development Right 6. Bottom-up Rural Spatial Changes under an Uncertain Institution of Collective Land Rights 7. From Rural Fragmentation to Urban Integration: Governance over Spatial Change 8. Conclusion: Land Rights and Sustainable Urbanization in the Future

Jieming Zhu (FAcSS) is Distinguished Professor in Urban Planning, Tongji University, China. His researches are in institutional analysis of urban development, planning of high-density low-income Asian cities, and lately, inclusive urbanization in China.