Evaluating the ‘Dipiao’ policy from the perspectives of relocated peasants: an equitable and sustainable approach to urbanisation?

ABSTRACT

The city of Chongqing in Southwest China has recently attracted widespread attention for adopting a land-use policy, dipiao, which has radically transformed the rural and urban landscape. Previous research on the impacts of the new scheme on peasants remains inconclusive, which necessitates further qualitative study on whether the policy provides an equitable and sustainable solution to urbanisation. According to the results of semi-structured interviews conducted with 34 relocated peasants, the policy is equitable for all peasants regarding urbanisation. However, economically-disadvantaged peasants struggle with their livelihood after relocation. The findings enrich the understanding of the ongoing urbanisation process in China.

KEYWORDS:

• Dipiao
• relocated peasants
• equitable and sustainable approach
• urbanisation
• Chongqing

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The TDR is a means of transferring development rights from a piece of preserved land (sending area) into an area proposed for higher residential density developments (receiving area). The TDR concepts were firstly applied in the US in the 1960s and then later practiced in European countries (Nelson, Pruetz, and Woodruff 2013; Chen, Yu, and Choguill 2020).

2. The city of Chongqing as a province (Hidalgo Martinez and Cartier 2017) consists of 26 urban districts, eight counties, and four autonomous counties with a total territory of 82,400 km² and a population of 31 million.

3. There are four directly-governed municipalities in China, Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Chongqing, which have more direct relations with the central government (Cartier 2015). These four municipalities can be viewed as the party-state strategically governs urban and economic development at the mesoscale.

4. The Chongqing Rural Land Exchange Center is a government organisation managing all the bidding processes and market transactions of dipiao. Due to the land ownership in China, the primary land market should be operated by each municipal government.

5. A unit of measurement commonly used in rural China. One mu is about 666.7 m².

6. Hukou is a governmental regime of household registration system introduced in 1958. The holders of urban hukou enjoy a government-mandated monopoly over forms of urban social security, such as subsidised housing, education, and retirement pensions.

7. According to the official data, between 2010 and 2011, a total of 3.38 million new urban hukou was issued to peasants, including those who joined in the dipiao scheme (Net 2011).