Institutional arrangement behind peri-urban land development
In China, collective ownership and state ownership in land coexist.
According to the 1998 Land Management Law, all urban land
belongs to the state while land in rural districts and villages belongs
to collectives. Collective land belongs to various farmers’ economic
units such as farmers’ co-operative societies or village committees.
While the establishment of the LURs System in 1988 has
allowed leasing, transferring and selling of urban land at different
intervals in rural areas, collective ownership has allocated farmers
plots of land for cultivating and building their own houses within
their individual allocated land (this land is called zhaijidi in China).
Collective land can be inherited, but it cannot be converted into
urban use without going through the legal process. Through strictly
establishing a line between urban and collective land, the Chinese
government has created a dual land management system. The
double-track land use system is uniformly implemented throughout
the entire country.