Urbanization, Land Development, and Land Financing: Evidence from Chinese Cities

ABSTRACT: China’s urbanization is significant worldwide. This process is characterized by underurbanization of population and fast urban land expansion. The driving forces behind this expansion and their rationale are not fully understood and empirically tested. This study fills this gap by analyzing panel data from 1999–2009 for all 286 prefecture-level cities in China. The findings reveal that land financing, using different measures, significantly contributed to land urbanization in China. Economically stronger cities with higher real estate investment more aggressively pushed for land urbanization. The true purpose of urbanization should be improving the living standard, not to generate revenue. It is suggested that urbanization can serve its justified goals only if fiscal and political relations between central and local governments can be adjusted. As more data become available, future studies are encouraged to further explore the subject by investigating additional factors and the latest trend of urbanization in China. Struggling land under the pressure of urbanization, Guangzhou, China (2011).

[1]  A. Yeh,et al.  City Repositioning and Competitiveness Building in Regional Development: New Development Strategies in Guangzhou, China , 2005 .

[2]  Paul M. Torrens,et al.  Simulating Sprawl , 2006 .

[3]  J. Brueckner,et al.  The Economics of Urban Sprawl: Theory and Evidence on the Spatial Sizes of Cities , 1983 .

[4]  Fulong Wu,et al.  Restless Urban Landscapes in China: A Case Study of Three Projects in Shanghai , 2012 .

[5]  Robert W. Wassmer.  Causes of Urban Sprawl in the United States: Auto reliance as compared to natural evolution, flight from blight, and local revenue reliance , 2008 .

[6]  Jieming Zhu.  A Transitional Institution for the Emerging Land Market in Urban China , 2005 .

[7]  Linxin Ye,et al.  State-led metropolitan governance in China: Making integrated city regions , 2014 .

[8]  Christer Ljungwall,et al.  Fiscal Federalism: a refined theory and its application in the Chinese context , 2013 .

[9]  Cheng Hsiao,et al.  Estimation of Dynamic Panel Data Models with Both Individual and Time Specific Effects , 2008 .

[10]  Eric J. Heikkila,et al.  Three Questions Regarding Urbanization in China , 2007 .

[11]  Linxin Ye.  Urban regeneration in China: Policy, development, and issues , 2011 .

[12]  Prostitution In Nevada,et al.  ANNALS of the Association of American Geographers , 1974 .

[13]  Xuefei Ren,et al.  Architecture and Nation Building in the Age of Globalization: Construction of the National Stadium of Beijing for the 2008 Olympics , 2008 .

[14]  Christine P. W. Wong,et al.  China - National development and sub-national finance : a review of provincial expenditures , 2003 .

[15]  Jeffrey M. Woodbridge.  Econometric Analysis of Cross Section and Panel Data , 2002 .

[16]  Xiangzheng Deng,et al.  Economic Growth and the Expansion of Urban Land in China , 2010 .

[17]  G. Lin.  Reproducing Spaces of Chinese Urbanisation: New City-based and Land-centred Urban Transformation , 2007 .

[18]  F. Deng,et al.  Uneven land reform and urban sprawl in China: the case of Beijing , 2004 .

[19]  Mingxing Liu,et al.  Land Leasing and Local Public Finance in China’s Regional Development: Evidence from Prefecture-level Cities: , 2010 .

[20]  Cathy Yang Liu.  From Los Angeles to Shanghai: Testing the Applicability of Five Urban Paradigms , 2012 .

[21]  Peter E. Kennedy.  A Guide to Econometrics , 1979 .

[22]  Fulong Wu,et al.  Property-Led Redevelopment in Post-Reform China: A Case Study of Xintiandi Redevelopment Project in Shanghai , 2005 .

[23]  Anthony Gar-On Yeh,et al.  Land Commodification: New Land Development and Politics in China since the Late 1990s , 2009 .

[24]  Linxin Ye.  Demographic Transition, Developmentalism and Social Security in China , 2011 .

[25]  Jeffrey M. Wooldridge,et al.  Introductory Econometrics: A Modern Approach , 1999 .

[26]  Wenjun Ma,et al.  Government intervention in city development of China: A tool of land supply , 2009 .

[27]  Chiew Ping Yew.  Pseudo-Urbanization? Competitive government behavior and urban sprawl in China , 2012 .

[28]  K. Chan,et al.  Misconceptions and Complexities in the Study of China's Cities: Definitions, Statistics, and Implications , 2007 .

[29]  K. Chan.  Fundamentals of China's Urbanization and Policy * , 2010 .

[30]  Erik Lichtenberg,et al.  Local officials as land developers: Urban spatial expansion in China , 2009 .

[31]  R. Lund.  Identification and Inference for Econometric Models: Essays in Honor of Thomas Rothenberg , 2006 .

[32]  P.F. Gorder,et al.  Simulating Sprawl , 2004, Computing in Science & Engineering.

[33]  Kwai-Cheung Lo.  When China encounters Asia again: Rethinking ethnic excess in some recent films from the PRC , 2010 .

[34]  C. Ding.  Urban Spatial Development in the Land Policy Reform Era: Evidence from Beijing , 2004 .

[35]  G. Peterson,et al.  Integrating Land Financing into Subnational Fiscal Management , 2010 .

[36]  Wenze Yue,et al.  Spatial Determinants of Urban Land Conversion in Large Chinese Cities: A Case of Hangzhou , 2011 .

[37]  Chaolin Gu,et al.  Urbanization in China: Processes and policies , 2010 .

[38]  P. Zhao.  Too complex to be managed? New trends in peri-urbanisation and its planning in Beijing , 2013 .

[39]  Urban Transformation and Institutional Policies: Case Study of Mega-Region Development in China’s Pearl River Delta , 2013 .

[40]  A. Yeh,et al.  The New Land Development Process and Urban Development in Chinese Cities , 1996 .

[41]  M. Antrop.  Landscape change and the urbanization process in Europe , 2004 .

[42]  Linxin Ye.  Regional Government and Governance in China and the United States , 2009 .

[43]  Yaping Wei,et al.  Assessing the fragmentation of construction land in urban areas: An index method and case study in Shunde, China , 2012 .

[44]  X. Yu,et al.  Spatial and temporal dynamics of urban sprawl along two urban–rural transects: A case study of Guangzhou, China , 2007 .

[45]  C. Cartier.  'Zone Fever', the Arable Land Debate, and Real Estate Speculation: China's evolving land use regime and its geographical contradictions , 2001 .

[46]  Linxin Ye,et al.  Mega-events, Local Economies, and Global Status: What Happened before the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai , 2010 .

[47]  S. Ho,et al.  Emerging Land Markets in Rural and Urban China: Policies and Practices , 2003, The China Quarterly.

[48]  R. LeGates,et al.  Asia and the Pacific Rim: The New Peri-Urbanization and Urban Theory , 2014 .