Leveraging land values for rural development in China after the Sichuan earthquake

Abstract

Since the late 1990s, rural residential land consolidation projects have propelled a wave of rural restructuring across China. Characterized by the creation of concentrated villages, land consolidation is seen as a means of both improving land-use efficiency and promoting rural development. But residential concentration is often funded through the commodification of rural land – a trend that became particularly clear in rural Chengdu after the Wenchuan earthquake. This article explores the implications of land-based rural reconstruction in Chengdu. Drawing on a comparison of three adjacent communities in peri-urban Chengdu, the article argues that the tactics adopted by local leaders in their efforts to generate funds through land consolidation can best be characterized as a process of leveraging rural land values. This leveraging entails not only a risk of failure, but also a diversion of public funds towards projects that enhance the attractiveness of land to urban investors, a removal of control over land from the hands of rural residents, and a deepening of inequalities across communities.