Reproduction of space in the city centre of mega-city regions: Bottom-up institutional reforms, profit redistribution, and urban redevelopment in Guangzhou

Abstract

Existing literature on China’s urbanisation has been based primarily on the expansion of cities and towns with little attention paid to urban renewals. Wasteful use of urban land has been conventionally attributed to the ambiguous definition and ineffective protection of property rights. This study examines the recent practices of urban redevelopment in Guangzhou – a site chosen by the central authorities for the experiment of urban renewals (san jiu gai zao 三旧改造). The research identifies a local practice in which institutional changes are made not in the delineation of land property rights but instead in the redistribution of the benefits to be made from land redevelopment. Original land users are motivated to engage in urban renewals by a share of the land conveyance income previously monopolised by the state. Land use intensity and efficiency have been improved along with intensified social exclusion and marginalisation. Land property rights are practiced not so much as a bundle of rights with standardised and uniform legal assignments but more as a diverse set of local and informal arrangements adaptable to various political and social conditions. Findings of this research cast doubt over the perceived notion that uniform and unambiguous property rights definition is the prerequisite for improved land use efficiency and call for a critical evaluation of the current urban renewal policies that completely ignore the interests of the migrant population who outnumber local villagers by a large margin.