A failed land development project and its implications for urban governance in China
China’s urban development has been driven by local governments’ land-centered operations. Since land is the most valuable resource under local control, land development has been the central mechanism of China’s urban development model. Local governments, like entrepreneurs, lead the construction of new urban spaces for accumulation, including new towns, mega-urban projects, and eco-cities. Because the expansion of land development is associated with expected income from land sales, it serves as a guarantee for local borrowing. In doing so, local governments channel more investment into land projects, fueling a pervasive trend of building new cities and new areas across the country. The operation of land development depends largely on future land appreciation, from which local states can benefit. In an era of economic downturn and a stagnating property market, land value appreciation is not guaranteed. What are the outcomes of land development projects in contemporary China?
The Price of Losing Autonomy
Amalgamations have gained popularity worldwide as important strategies for enhancing administrative efficiency and addressing a variety of governance challenges, including fiscal constraints, demographic shrinkage, and fragmented urban governance. This trend has also spurred a surge in empirical research to assess the actual impacts of such territorial reforms across diverse political and social contexts. One noticeable pattern that emerges from the literature is that small and politically marginalized units are often underserved after amalgamations, as a result of their diminished political importance in the post-amalgamated jurisdictions.
Public Service Provision and Urban Stratification in Shanghai
The interaction between public service provision of local governments and housing market can reinforce each other and polarize the socioeconomic space in this global city, Shanghai, even though the governance system is centralized instead of fragmented as in the US. Therefore, how to balance between different types of public expenditure within local governments has significant social and economic implications.