Informal Land Development on the Urban Fringe

Urban fringes are an important part of urban growth. In addition to formal land markets, a variety of informal land development methods make urban fringes the most dynamic and complicated areas. The analysis of land transfer and development systems in these areas opens a significant window to understanding the modern processes of urbanization and human and property rights in urban areas in China. This study uses Shanghai as a case study target and identifies specific modes of local land development and investigates how collective participants, government agencies, regulatory policies, and various actors are involved in land development and decision making. The in-depth analysis and case studies indicate that the variety of informal land markets in Shanghai reflects the inherent demands of the market for allocation of land resources within the constraints of the given system and against the given development background. However, conflicts between the mode of the market and the existing institutional constraints reflect the uncoordinated development of the land and the economic and social development around the urban fringe. The empirical results of this paper suggest that government administration should improve the land market system, strengthen the planning of control and guidance, rationalize the distribution of interests in land development, and strengthen the supervision of management of land development enterprises. Instead of fragmented aspects, this paper proposes a systematic analytical approach to understanding the informal land development in a city from an urban planning and land resource management perspective.

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