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Redevelopment of industrial land is an essential component of urban regeneration in China, which has profound implications for promoting urban sustainable development. Therefore, quantitative evaluations of the spatial variation of industrial land transformation and its influencing factors are required. This study explores the spatial patterns of industrial land transformation using overlay analysis. Then, it establishes a multinomial logistic regression model to explore their influential factors by collecting empirical data, including of the industrial renewal projects from 2010 to 2018 in Shenzhen, China. The findings show that urban redevelopment practices have profoundly transformed industrial land use in the recent urban renewal process. Market actors implement industrial land redevelopment projects with policy guidance. These actors with diversified redevelopment goals have directly shaped the spatial outcomes of industrial land transformation. A small portion of industrial sites has been transformed into public facilities and open space as required by redevelopment policies. At the same time, the majority have been converted into residential and commercial spaces, as well as new industrial spaces for innovative industries under market orientation. Significant spatial differences in regeneration outcomes exist at the urban level. The regression results indicate that policy and planning regulations, and land ownership, are the critical factors affecting the transformation of urban industrial land into different types of land uses. A favorable plot location tends to promote the transition of industrial parcels for commercial functions, with less impact on other options. The impact of public demand is almost negligible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of rail transit is expected to gather housing and jobs around metro stations to improve the urban spatial structure for sustainable development. However, evaluations of the effects of transit-oriented development (TOD) practices in Chinese cities remain limited. Based on 2019 mobile phone signaling data, this study analyzed the spatial relationship between metro station areas, urban population density, and employment density in Tianjin City, China. Kernel density estimation, the coverage rate of population and employment, and the envelope range density method for rail transit networks were used to describe the spatial relationships between rail transit and the distribution of population and employment. The concentric circle method was used to analyze the spatial variation of residential population density and employment density within the station surrounding areas. Multiple linear regressions, spatial autocorrelation analysis, and geographically weighted regression analysis were established to quantitatively evaluate the effects of metro stations on the residential population density and employment density around the stations. Results show that: (1) population and employment are significantly concentrated along the rail transit area; (2) metro stations within the suburban area, which are roughly 10 km away from the center, have the most significant aggregation effect on population and employment; and (3) employment density and the proportion of residential and commercial lands are the most influential factors in residential population density within the station's surrounding areas. These findings contribute to comprehensive spatial analysis on population and employment densities around metro stations and provide scientific support for sustainable urban development. Based on the research results, policy implications are proposed to better guide the coordinated development of rail transit and urban spatial structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study seeks to enrich our understanding of the concept of growth coalition through analyzing the extended and changeable composition of the urban redevelopment growth coalition and its dynamic operation within the context of market-oriented urban village redevelopment in China. An analytical framework which combines growth coalition theory with the varieties of urban entrepreneurialism is developed. An in-depth investigation of a representative case of urban village renewal projects in Shenzhen has been further conducted to reveal the complex and dynamic processes of cooperating and competing for land-based interests within the coalition. Results show that the coalition of the Village Shareholding Companies (VSCs) and developers has become the key actor in initiating and implementing urban village redevelopment. Competition and cooperation between the cooperative developers and the local governments on provision of public infrastructures and between developers and the VSCs on the distribution proportion of land-based interests are key determinants in implementing the redevelopment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Informal housing accommodates a large number of populations in the worldwide and has received considerable attention. However, there is still a lack of understanding on the diversified informal settlers and their housing incentives, constraints, and risks they face. Based on existing research on property rights and informal settlements, this study presents a conceptual framework that includes four dimensions of property rights (the right of possession, the right of use, the right to earn rental income and the right of transfer) to explore the de facto property rights of Small Property Rights Housing (SPRH) owners for a better understanding on informal housing ownership and its relationship with formal and informal institutional arrangements in China. In-depth interviews with SPRH owners were conducted to explore the de facto property rights of SPRH ownership. Findings reveal that the “small” property rights shaped by formal and informal institutional arrangements have resulted in unique housing values of SPRH. Such housing values have met a wide range of housing needs and motivated heterogeneous social groups to obtain SPRH ownership in urbanizing China. Constructive attempts to clarify the “small” property rights of SPRH should consider the different social groups of informal housing owners and their diversified housing needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Debate on the shift from a monocentric to polycentric urban structure has been extensive. Polycentricity generally refers to the co-existence of several centers in a city. Existing studies regarding China have mainly focused on the morphological characteristics of urban centers, but few recent studies have focused on functional dimensions of urban centers. Emerging big data sources provide new opportunities to explore the morphological and functional perspectives of urban spatial structure. This study uses mobile phone signaling data and develops a new methodology to measure urban centers' functional centrality. The study area focuses on Shenzhen City, which has rapidly transformed from a village into a metropolitan city in the past few decades. As the first economic special zone in China, Shenzhen has adopted a polycentric urban plan since the beginning of the urbanization process. This study explores the spatial employment structure of the city from the morphological and function dimensions. Based on the findings, this study discusses the role of urban planning in forming an urban spatial structure and provides implications for future planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban development in China is based on two types of land ownership, namely, state land owned by states and collective land owned by village collectives. Legally speaking, urban development must be based on state land. In practice, informal development based on collective land has played important roles in the rapid urbanization process over the past decades. Nonetheless, the vague property rights over collective land have led to inferior and suboptimal development outcomes in expansive urban areas. The redevelopment of collective land has become an important means to sustain urban development in an ongoing urbanization process. By adopting theoretical perspectives from New Institutional Economics, this study presents an integrated conceptual framework on the institutional arrangements of land property rights and transaction costs to understand the changes in land policies and their institutional implications for the redevelopment of collective land in Shenzhen, China. The findings reveal that the new policies have redefined the relationship among the government, village collectives, and real estate developers as well as their property rights over collective land. The change of institutional arrangements in land property rights has significantly reduced the transaction costs in the redevelopment process and effectively promoted land redevelopment activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Small Property Rights Housing (SPRH) is an important part of informal housing in China. SPRH is defined as housing developed with collective land ownership that is then sold to outside homebuyers such as non-indigenous villagers. This housing practice is legally forbidden and comes without formal titles. SPRH is popular in big Chinese cities where formal housing prices are constantly rising and increasingly unaffordable for many urban residents. However, research on SPRH is rare. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the effects (or the lack thereof) of de-jure property rights on housing prices by using the empirical case of Shenzhen where SPRH and FPRH estates constitute the main sources of urban housing for its residents. We collected both SPRH and formal Full Property Right Housing (FPRH) data in the Shenzhen housing market and adopted the Boundary Fixed Effect method and matching strategy to mitigate the bias caused by unobservable location and neighborhood factors. This empirical study shows that the lack of de-jure property rights has negative and significant effects on housing prices. The average housing price for SPRH apartments is, ceteris paribus , 52.82% lower than for formal FPRH apartments. Also, the premium of property rights varies across two administrative regions with different locations and economic environments, and the premium decreases as the age of the building increases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compared with other newly developed urban areas, urban villages in China are in greater need for redevelopment. Governed by institutions inherited from the local-state-dominated dual land ownership system, the redevelopment of these villages follows a state-led land requisition system, which confers development rights to local governments while limiting the rights of village collectives. Two other complementary arrangements include the top-down land use planning system and the state-monopolized land transfer system. Although these institutional arrangements favor land conversion in greenfield development, they cannot be easily implemented in the village redevelopment process. By reviewing the redevelopment policies and practices, this study empirically examines the redevelopment of urban villages in Shenzhen during the policy period from 2004 to 2009 and adopts the transaction cost perspective in analyzing how state-led institutional arrangements have resulted in many time-consuming transactions and hindered the redevelopment of urban villages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

Abstract: The rapid urbanization of China during the past decades has led to the emergence and development of urban villages. Existing literature has largely focused on the lack of state regulations in the development of urban villages. This paper comprehensively identifies and investigates the institutional constraints on land development in urban villages in China based on a property rights framework and a comparative study on two representative cases in Shenzhen. The key institutional constraints on the land development in urban villages include 1) land insecurity caused by the possibility of government expropriation, 2) unequal access to credit because of unequal land rights, and 3) absence of state regulations on collective land transactions because of the lack of de jure property rights. These institutional constraints weakened the land-related investment incentives and ability of villagers, and resulted in inferior infrastructure and poorly constructed environment in urban villages. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The study investigates the economic performance of industrial development in the Chinese urbanization process under two different property rights arrangements. Industrial development contributes significantly to China's economic growth in the urbanization process. As one of the most fundamental institutional arrangements, the urban–rural dual land system is important in urbanization and industrial development in China. Two types of land system including state and collective ownership coexist in the current land administration system. According to the law, the state owns the urban land, whereas the village collective owns the rural land. State requisition is the only channel to convert rural land to urban land. Village collectives are not allowed to transfer their land for urban use. Therefore, the property rights on collective land are incomplete in the urbanization process. Do incomplete property rights cause unsatisfactory economic performance of industrial development on collective land? Based on community-level data from two districts with an area of 1557 km2 in Shenzhen in 2006, a regression analysis shows that incomplete property rights have caused significant land use inefficiency in industrial development in terms of lower land rental value and lower industrial value added per unit of land. The findings suggest that monthly rental prices of industrial plants on collective land were approximately 57% less than those on state land in 2006. The industrial value produced on collective land was RMB 6.624 billion less than on state land per km2. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Since 2008, the urban redevelopment in China has entered a new era mainly characterised by the new redevelopment model proposed and practised in Guangdong province. In the new wave of urban redevelopment towards a more inclusive type of governance, the roles of various agents or stakeholders in the decision-making processes have changed correspondingly. Building upon Healey and Barrett's structure and agency approach in the land and property development process, this paper develops an analytical framework specifically to explore the decision-making processes and mechanisms in this urban redevelopment experiment conducted in China. The empirical basis of this paper is a pioneer city in urban redevelopment within Guangdong province, Shenzhen. Through exploring the redevelopment trajectory of a local collective-owned factory, the roles played by different stakeholders at each stage of the redevelopment process are clarified. The conflicts and compromises between land owners and the developer on the distribution proportion of potential profits, and between the district government and the developer on the inclusion and provision of public facilities, have revealed the key decision-making mechanisms of collective-owned industrial land redevelopment in China, which offer valuable insights and experiences for industrial land redevelopment in other cities. • An analytical framework is developed to explore the decision-making processes. • The case study reveals the roles of actors and their interaction patterns. • Various stakeholders have their own rights to participate in the negotiation arena. • The developer has become a key coordinator to ensure the decision-making process. • The roles of the municipal and district governments have changed fundamentally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban renewal has become an essential part of the ongoing urban development in China. This study provides a citywide analysis on the spatial determinants of land redevelopment activities in the urban renewal processes in Shenzhen, China. Based on the concept of rent gap and a perspective of transaction costs, a conceptual framework is developed to understand land redevelopment behaviors and analyze how location factors, land property rights, land use status and urban planning collectively affect land redevelopment outcomes. Empirical analysis is conducted based on logistic regression models with unique parcel-level data of all urban renewal projects in the entire city of Shenzhen and in special economic zone (SEZ) and non-SEZ areas. This study shows that urban sites with high land rent gap levels and low transaction costs are more likely to be redeveloped earlier. Aside from location factors, land property rights, land use status and urban planning all have a significant influence on the spatial variation of land redevelopment activities. These factors have varied effects on land redevelopment in the SEZ and non-SEZ areas due to the institutional differences and development conditions in these two areas. The research findings suggest the need for further policy considerations to better guide land redevelopment toward sustainable development. Redevelopment policies and regulations should also consider the dissimilar redevelopment conditions of different regions. • A citywide analysis on spatial determinants of land redevelopment is conducted based on parcel-level data. • Urban sites with a higher level of land rent gap and a lower level of transaction costs are more likely to be redeveloped. • Location factors, land property rights, land use status and urban planning collectively affect redevelopment outcomes. • The effects are different in SEZ and non-SEZ areas due to the institutional differences and development conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]