Leveraging land values for rural development in China after the Sichuan earthquake

Since the late 1990s, rural residential land consolidation projects have propelled a wave of rural restructuring across China. Characterized by the creation of concentrated villages, land consolidation is seen as a means of both improving land-use efficiency and promoting rural development. But residential concentration is often funded through the commodification of rural land – a trend that became particularly clear in rural Chengdu after the Wenchuan earthquake. This article explores the implications of land-based rural reconstruction in Chengdu. Drawing on a comparison of three adjacent communities in peri-urban Chengdu, the article argues that the tactics adopted by local leaders in their efforts to generate funds through land consolidation can best be characterized as a process of leveraging rural land values. This leveraging entails not only a risk of failure, but also a diversion of public funds towards projects that enhance the attractiveness of land to urban investors, a removal of control over land from the hands of rural residents, and a deepening of inequalities across communities.

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Estimating the mechanism of farmers’ effective participation in Chinese rural land consolidation

China Agricultural Economic Review ◽

10.1108/caer-08-2016-0126 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

pp. 100-124 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Wenxiong Wang ◽

Lihong Yu ◽

Wei Zhou ◽

David W. Marcouiller ◽

Bin Luo

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Structural Equation ◽

Equation Model ◽

Land Consolidation ◽

Farmer Participation ◽

Rural Land ◽

Consolidation Process ◽

Content Type ◽

Empirical Survey ◽

Land Use Efficiency

PurposeEffective farmer participation in the rural land consolidation process has become increasingly important because it improves results in rural land consolidation and land use efficiency. The purpose of this paper is to examine the mechanism of farmers’ effective participation in Chinese rural land consolidation.Design/methodology/approachThe authors empirically assess farmers’ effective participation in the rural land consolidation process in ten counties of China’s Hubei province. Focusing on an effective decision-making model, the authors comprehensively evaluated farmer participation using surveys that incorporated an index system and analyzed survey results using a structural equation model to examine factors that influenced farmer’s effective participation.FindingsThe results of the study suggest that the correlations between farmers’ effective participation and the impacting factors the authors proposed were particularly strong. In addition, participation ability, participation opportunity and participation incentive are strongly associated with effective farmer participation. Thus, the authors highlight that incentives should be provided to encourage farmers’ effective participation in rural land consolidation.Research limitations/implicationsBecause of the chosen approach and the set of the research object, the geographic context of the empirical survey work was limited; furthermore, the authors only studied the influencing factors at the individual level, leaving the interaction effects between governmental factors and farmer individual factors inadequately explained.Originality/valueDespite those limitations, these results serve as an important reference for government agencies and stakeholder groups in rural land consolidation decision making.

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Farmers’ attitudes toward land titling and its potential effects on rural development in China

China Agricultural Economic Review ◽

10.1108/caer-10-2015-0130 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 10 (3) ◽

pp. 425-442 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Zhonghua Huang ◽

Xuejun Du

Keyword(s):

Rural Development ◽

Survey Data ◽

Labor Migration ◽

Rural Land ◽

Residential Land ◽

Content Type ◽

Land Titling ◽

And Behavior ◽

Attitudes And Behavior ◽

Rural Residential Land

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate farmers’ attitudes and behavior toward land titling and to study its potential effects on rural development. Design/methodology/approach Using household survey data collected from five provinces of China in 2010, this paper assesses farmer’s attitudes toward land titling and examines the potential effects of land titling on rural land transferring and labor migration. Findings Rural residential land titling has significant effects on farmers’ attitudes toward land transferring and their migration intention. Farmers who have more non-agricultural development opportunities are more likely to welcome land titling. The titling of rural residential land could provide secure property rights for farmers, and thus stimulate them to trade, mortgage their rural residential property, and migrate to urban areas. Research limitations/implications Land titling in rural China will probably affect rural land transferring and encourage rural labor migrate to urban, and thus promote rural development. Originality/value This paper investigates farmers’ attitudes and behavior toward land titling, and examines its potential effects on rural land transferring and labor migration, based on national survey data. This paper sheds new lights on farmers’ demand for types of land tenure reforms and how these reforms would affect the perceived opportunities available for farmers.

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How land transfer affects agricultural land use efficiency: Evidence from China’s agricultural sector

Land Use Policy ◽

10.1016/j.landusepol.2021.105300 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 103 ◽

pp. 105300 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Rilong Fei ◽

Ziyi Lin ◽

Joseph Chunga

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Agricultural Sector ◽

Agricultural Land ◽

Agricultural Land Use ◽

Land Use Efficiency ◽

Land Transfer ◽

Use Efficiency

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Assessment and Spatial-Temporal Evolution Analysis of Urban Land Use Efficiency under Green Development Orientation: Case of the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomerations

Land ◽

10.3390/land10070715 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (7) ◽

pp. 715

Author(s):

Yingkai Tang ◽

Kun Wang ◽

Xuanming Ji ◽

He Xu ◽

Yangqing Xiao

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Urban Development ◽

Evaluation System ◽

Yangtze River Delta ◽

Urban Land ◽

Urban Land Use ◽

Land Use Efficiency ◽

Green Development ◽

Use Efficiency ◽

Development Orientation

Rapid urbanization has provided a strong impetus for the economic growth of China, but it has also caused many problems such as inefficient urban land use and environmental pollution. With the popularization of the concept of green and sustainable development, the Environmental-Social-Governance (ESG) assessment concept is widely accepted. The government and residents are paying more and more attention to environmental issues in urban development, and environmental protection has formed an important part of urban development. In this context, this study takes 26 cities in the Yangtze River Delta as examples to build an evaluation system for urban land-use efficiency under green development orientation. The evaluation system takes into account the inputs of land, capital, labor, and energy factors in the process of urban development. Based on emphasizing economic output, the social benefits and undesired outputs brought about by urban development are taken into account. This paper measures urban land use efficiency by the super-efficiency SBM model, and on this basis, analyses the spatial-temporal evolution characteristics of urban land-use efficiency. Further, this paper measures urban land use efficiency without considering undesired outputs and compares the two evaluation methods. Again, the comparison illustrates the rationality of urban land use efficiency evaluation system under green development orientation.

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Does the Construction and Operation of High-Speed Rail Improve Urban Land Use Efficiency? Evidence from China

Land ◽

10.3390/land10030303 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (3) ◽

pp. 303

Author(s):

Xinhai Lu ◽

Yifeng Tang ◽

Shangan Ke

Keyword(s):

Economic Growth ◽

Land Use ◽

High Speed ◽

Urban Land ◽

Urban Land Use ◽

Western China ◽

High Speed Rail ◽

Land Use Efficiency ◽

Use Efficiency ◽

The Impact

The construction and operation of high-speed rail (HSR) has become an important policy for China to achieve efficiency and fairness and promote high-quality economic growth. HSR promotes the flow of production factors such as labor and capital and affects economic growth, and may further affect urban land use efficiency (ULUE). To explore the impact of HSR on ULUE, this paper uses panel data of 284 cities in China from 2005 to 2018, and constructs Propensity Score Matching-Differences in Differences model to evaluate the effect of HSR on ULUE. The result of entire China demonstrates that the HSR could significantly improves the ULUE. Meanwhile, this paper also considers the heterogeneity of results caused by geographic location, urban levels and scales. It demonstrates that the HSR has a significantly positive effect on ULUE of Eastern, Central China, and large-sized cities. However, in Western China, in medium-sized, and small-sized cities, the impact of HSR on ULUE is not significant. This paper concludes that construction and operation of HSR should be linked to urban development planning and land use planning. Meanwhile, the cities with different geographical locations and scales should take advantage of HSR to improve ULUE and promote urban coordinated development.

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Does Smart City Construction Improve the Green Utilization Efficiency of Urban Land?

Land ◽

10.3390/land10060657 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (6) ◽

pp. 657

Author(s):

Aiping Wang ◽

Weifen Lin ◽

Bei Liu ◽

Hui Wang ◽

Hong Xu

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Urban Development ◽

Financial Development ◽

Smart City ◽

Urban Land ◽

Utilization Efficiency ◽

Land Use Efficiency ◽

Use Efficiency ◽

City Construction ◽

Green Land

Frontier research primarily focuses on the effect of urban development models on land use efficiency, while ignoring the effect of new-type urban development on the green land use efficiency. Accordingly, this paper employs a super efficiency slacks-based measure (super-SBM) model with undesirable outputs to measure the green land use efficiency based on panel data from 152 prefecture-level cities for the period 2004–2017. We construct a difference-in-differences (DID) model in this paper to test the impact of smart city construction on the green utilization efficiency of urban land and its transmission mechanism. The results showed that: (1) The smart city construction significantly improved the green utilization efficiency of urban land, increasing the general efficiency by 15%. (2) There is significant city-size heterogeneity in the effect of smart city construction on improving green utilization efficiency of urban land. The policy effect is more obvious in mega cities and above than in very-large-sized cities. (3) The city-feature heterogeneity results reveal that, in cities with a higher level of human capital, financial development, and information infrastructure, the effectiveness of smart city construction in improving the green utilization efficiency of urban land are more obvious, and in cities with a higher level of financial development, the effects of the urban policy were more optimal. (4) The smart city construction promotes the green utilization efficiency of urban land through by the information industry development and the regional innovation capabilities.

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A Novel Efficiency Measure Model for Industrial Land Use Based on Subvector Data Envelope Analysis and Spatial Analysis Method

Complexity ◽

10.1155/2017/9516267 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 2017 ◽

pp. 1-11 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Wei Chen ◽

Rui He ◽

Qun Wu

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Spatial Analysis ◽

Spatial Autocorrelation ◽

Industrial Development ◽

Efficiency Measure ◽

Industrial Land ◽

Envelope Analysis ◽

Land Use Efficiency ◽

Industrial Land Use ◽

Use Efficiency

With the rapid and unbalanced development of industry, a large amount of cultivated land is converted into industrial land with lower efficiency. The existing research is extensively concerned with industrial land use and industrial development in isolation, but little attention has been paid to the relationship between them. To help address this gap, the paper creates a new efficiency measure method for industrial land use combining Subvector Data Envelope Analysis (DEA) with spatial analysis approach. The proposed model has been verified by using the industrial land use data of 30 Chinese provinces from 2001 to 2013. The spatial autocorrelation relationship between industrial development and industrial land use efficiency is explored. Furthermore, this paper examines the effects of industrial development on industrial land use efficiency by spatial panel data model. The results indicate that the industrial land use efficiency and the industrial development level in the provinces of eastern region are higher than those of the western region. The spatial distribution of industrial land use efficiency shows remarkable positive spatial autocorrelation. However, the level of industrial development has obvious negative spatial autocorrelation since 2009. The improvement of industrial development has a significant positive impact on the industrial land use efficiency.

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