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China is facing the challenge of sustainable urban redevelopment due to its massive economic transformation process. As a unique product of the rapid urbanization of past decades, urban village has become a major obstacle for sustainable redevelopment because of its sub-standard infrastructure and disordered built environment. Redevelopment of ‘villages in the city’ (ViCs) is distinct from normal urban redevelopment because it involves the change of collective land ownership without de jure property rights to state land ownership with de jure property rights. What site characteristics, what ownership type, what geographical characteristics, make village sites more likely to be redeveloped? This study addresses this question with particular reference to industrial sites in Shenzhen. An analytical framework is developed based on the concept of rent gap to analyze the possible effects of these factors. An empirical investigation is conducted based on a set of data that covers all 44 village-owned industrial sites in the Nanshan District in Shenzhen. The findings suggest that village sites with better accessibility to good transportation facilities and the city centre are significantly more likely to be redeveloped and thus will be integrated into formal urban areas earlier than those located in less accessible areas. It is also demonstrated that fragmented land ownership and lack of legal land rights are not significant barriers for the sustainable redevelopment of such sites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Renewable energy is necessary for sustainable social and economic development. This is particularly so with global energy shortages, the continuous deterioration of ecosystems and the environment, as well as the world population explosion. This article qualitatively and quantitatively analyzes the effects and problems of Chinese favorable land price policy on photovoltaics. In examining the favorable land price policy in China, this study develops a multiple-linear regression model to study the effects of favorable land price policy on photovoltaic power and photovoltaic industry. Data used in this research was mainly collected from 20 provinces in China. It is found that the development of PV in China has been greatly affected by the favorable land price policy. In the end, it is highly recommended that favorable land price policy should be continued for renewable energy. Systemic deficiencies can be overcome through continual reform and innovation of mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In current practice, urban-rural development has been regarded as one of the key pillars in driving regenerative development that includes economic, social, and environmental balance. In association with rapid urbanization, an important contemporary issue in China is that its rural areas are increasingly lagging behind urban areas in their development and a coordinated provision of public facilities in rural areas is necessary to achieve a better balance. A model is therefore introduced for quantifying the effect of individual infrastructure projects on urban-rural balance (e-UR) by focusing on two attributes, namely, efficiency and equity. The model is demonstrated through a multi-criteria model, developed with data collected from infrastructure projects in Chongqing, with the criteria values for each project being scored by comparing data collected from the project involved with e-UR neutral “benchmark” values derived from a survey of experts in the field. The model helps evaluate the contribution of the projects to improving rural-urban balance and hence enable government decision-makers for the first time to prioritize future projects rigorously in terms of their likely contribution too. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]