Path-dependent institutional change to collective land rights: The collective entrenched in urbanizing Guangzhou

ABSTRACT

Economic reform brings about socioeconomic and organizational changes, which give rise to institutional change as a result. Collective land rights are undergoing continuing institutional change in the context of dynamic, bottom-up, rural change and consequent problematic spatial fragmentation, ecological deterioration, exclusiveness of migrants, and land underutilization in the Pearl River Delta region. The implementation of the Renewal and Refurbishment Program in Panyu, a district in Guangzhou, reveals that the collective land use right, owned by the villages, has constituted an effective holding power to bargain for institutional change to the collective land rights in favor of the rural collective. As a result, path-dependent institutional change to the collective land rights leads to the collective entrenched in the urbanizing metropolis.

Acknowledgments

The assistance of Xu Guo and Boyi Wang in empirical investigation is greatly appreciated.

Notes

1. The state is represented by the urban government in a local region. The term urban state refers to urban governments with a connotation of the state, vis-à-vis the collective.

2. Ownership of rural land is officially vested in the collective entities at three hierarchical levels (township, administrative village, natural village; Tang, 2009).

3. One can migrate to a city where urban hukou is obtainable. But no one is allowed to migrate to a village and settle down with a rural hukou.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jieming Zhu

Jieming Zhu teaches at Tongji University and is Chief Planner in the Shanghai Tongji Urban Planning and Design Institute. He is an expert advisor to the Urban Planning Commission, Municipal Government of Guangzhou, China. His research interests lie in institutional analysis of urban development in the transitional economy and urban planning in high-density, low-income Asian cities.