China's Landed Urbanization: Neoliberalizing Politics, Land Commodification, and Municipal Finance in the Growth of Metropolises

Abstract

Prevailing theories of uneven development see the growth of cities and regions as the spatial outcome of either the functioning of intrinsic agglomeration economies or the intrusion of global neoliberal market forces. Emphasis is placed on human resources and technology with land and capital usually taken for granted. This study of the growth of two leading Chinese metropolises-Beijing and Guangzhou-identifies a distinct strategy of urbanization financed by land commodification and actively pursued by Chinese municipal governments to contest with state power reshuffling in the era of neoliberalization. Contrary to popular notions, land commodification, rather than human capital or advanced technology, has played a role instrumental to the growth and transformation of China's metropolises. The popular practice of landed urbanization owes its political origins more to domestic state power reshuffling than to the intrusion of the global neoliberal agenda. State and market do not function as two diametrically opposing and self-contained entities but are characterized by their diverse and conflictual internal dynamics. Local states are found to have embraced and manipulated market forces for their political agenda. Theorization of global urbanism needs to go beyond the Euro-American comfort zone and to take seriously alternative practices and struggles found in the Global South.

Planning centrality, market instruments: Governing Chinese urban transformation under state entrepreneurialism

“…Expansionist state entrepreneurialism extended planning power into largely 'unplanned' rural areas, initially through so-called 'urban-rural integration planning' (Qian and Wong, 2012), and later formalised in the 2008 City and Countryside Planning Act. Since the formalisation of land markets and strengthened land management with the protection of 'basic agricultural land', a regulated land supply has facilitated the development of land-driven urban development in China (Lin, 2014). In contrast to enhanced urban governance, rural public finance is very weak (Po, 2012).…”

“…Since 2004, the central government has strengthened land management and required that all developable land should be released through open auction in a transparent land market. To protect agricultural land, the central government allocates land development quotas to local governments (Lin, 2014;Tian et al, 2017). These policies have slowed down the pace of land acquisition and urban sprawl that started in the 1990s.…”

“…Through encouraging industrial development and its spill-over effects to generate higher commercial and residential land values, local governments use their monopolistic control over the supply of land to capture land values. This mechanism creates an institution similar to the growth machine in which local political leaders, city planners and media join land owners to boost land value (He and Wu, 2005;Hsing, 2010;Lin, 2014;Zhu, 1999). Through promoting land development, the local state as de facto land owner uses land as collateral to gain capital from the banking system so as to finance longterm economic development.…”

Emerging Chinese Cities: Implications for Global Urban Studies

“…Wang 2014). Lin (2014) described land commodification leading to local development due to the rescaling and reshuffling of state power. This is used as "a strategy adopted by the Chinese municipal governments in their contestation of the scaling-up of fiscal power and scaling-down of developmental liabilities and responsibilities" (1832).…”

Land and Real Estate in Northeast Asia, New Approaches in an Era of Financialization

“…At the same time, the idiosyncratic character of the Chinese property-led capital accumulation regime has led to new theorizations. In particular, financial aspects of land supply and land collateralization relating to local government debt have been conceptualized inter allia as "land-centered" or "landed" urbanization (Lin, 2014;Ye & Wu, 2014), "urban-centered accumulation" (Hsing, 2010) and "speculation-oriented urban entrepreneurialism" (Chien, 2013). Yet the interactions between land supply and real estate development have remained surprisingly under-studied.…”