Providing rural public services through land commodification: Policy innovations and rural-urban integration in Chengdu

• Main Authors: ZHANG, Qian Forrest, WU, Jianling
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2016
• Subjects: China; land use policy; rural areas; innovations; government services; Agribusiness; Asian Studies; Rural Sociology; Sociology
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/2387; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/3644/viewcontent/ProvidingRuralPublicServicesLandCommodification_2017.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Zhang and Wu offer a detailed account of the innovative local policies in Chengdu, China, where a national land-use policy that has created widespread problems in other trial areas has been turned into a positive, transformative force in rural reconstruction. There are three key innovations in this so-called ‘Chengdu model’: First, leveraging on the most important resource in rural area, land, and through the commodification of land development rights, creating a financial source that can fund rural public services provision; second, transforming traditional rural residential patterns and concentrating the rural population in newly built residential communities; and, finally, using both market and hierarchical tools to both motivate and control grassroots governments and creating new institutions to facilitate public participation in services delivery.