Official relocation and self-help development: Three housing strategies under ambiguous property rights in China�s rural land development

• Autores: Jing Song
• Localización: Urban Studies, ISSN-e 1360-063X, Vol. 52, Nº. 1, 2014, págs. 121-137
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The recent trend to develop rural land in western China has resulted in the large-scale relocation of villagers. It has also given rise to self-help development of housing. By examining long-established research on both formal urban development and informal village settlements, this study examines self-built housing, collective-endorsed housing and urban relocation housing in one western Chinese village. Their coexistence was made possible by ambiguities in property rights. The state�collective divide and the urban�rural dichotomy in property rights were restructured in land development, and villagers were able to use various means to take advantage of transitional, favourable deals to gain short- or long-term returns. Specifically, self-developed housing met market demands and traditional lifestyles, but witnessed a gap between de jure and de facto property rights and could not be easily formalised, whereas officially sanctioned relocation provided long-term homeownership but with ambiguous de jure property rights and failed to fully integrate villagers into urban neighbourhoods. To a lesser extent, collective endorsement added to the legitimacy of self-help development.