Integrated Urban-Rural Development and Land Use

Ye Jianping, Professor and Director of the Department of Land Management, School of Public **** Management, Renmin University of China

I. Background

China's reform began with the reform of the rural land system in 1978, and its future development will have to go through the completion of industrialization and urbanization, and the realization of modernization. Does China's integrated urban-rural development end with rural land? At the beginning I raised such a question and thought. At present, while urban land has basically established a sound property rights system and management system, rural land is obviously deficient in this respect: firstly, the power of land is incomplete; secondly, under such circumstances, how can the land market establish integrated urban-rural development and how can it achieve modernization. To make up for this shortcoming, there is no doubt that we need to open up the path between urban and rural areas.

I will first briefly talk about the background of China's integrated urban-rural development through two examples of matching the urban-rural income gap and the level of industrialization and urbanization.

Figure 1 is the classic Kuznets curve, which is used to illustrate the problem of change in the link between income distribution and the stage of economic development, from balance to imbalance, reflecting the modern economic and social development from the initial accumulation to rapid development and then to a harmonious **** life such a process of development and change, and the problems that exist at the present time are some of the problems in the development process. On the contrary, China's urban-rural income ratio, from 2.57 in 1978 to 3.33 in 2007, seems to be far more than the urban and rural incomes should be convergence of the warning point, and there is a trend to continue to expand, so urban and rural co-ordination of the development of the concept of governance put forward is very timely and necessary.

Figure 1 Kuznets Curve

H. Chinnery, after studying and summarizing the development experience of some countries, concluded that industrialization and urbanization influence each other and promote each other, and that the level of urbanization tends to be higher than the level of industrialization in a certain period of time (Figure 2). On the contrary, China's urbanization and industrialization development level is not coordinated (Figure 3), China's urbanization level is lower than the level of industrialization, resulting in the problem of "land elements into the city, the rural population can not enter the city". Therefore, the level of urbanization should be further increased, higher than the level of industrialization, which will also promote the integration of urban and rural areas and economic and social harmony, which is a big problem.

Figure 2 Comparison between urbanization level and industrialization level in developing countries

(H. Chinnery's development model)

Figure 3 Comparison between urbanization level and industrialization level in China

Two, how to understand the land use in the integrated urban-rural development

(1) We should look at and study the land issue with a systematic and comprehensive perspective

The land issue is not limited to the land itself. >The land issue is not limited to the land itself, but is also a social issue, even at the political and institutional levels. Land is a subsystem of the social economy, and should be placed in the perspective of the larger social and economic system to view and study land issues, which requires getting rid of the traditional "land on land" simple thinking, through a systematic and comprehensive perspective to land management and land use issues. These issues should be summarized in four main aspects (Figure 4): first, the integration of people and land; second, the integration of capital and land; third, the integration of technology and land; and fourth, the integration of institutions and land. And how land, capital, technology, manpower, and institutions can be better integrated to promote development is the core issue of concern to development economics, a major development issue that developing economies in the world generally need to continuously study and explore solutions, and also an issue that must be resolved for China's future development.

At present, in our country, people are free to move; the capital market is constantly improving, and in compliance with the relevant national laws and regulations, it is also free to move; at the same time, technology can also be mobile; in contrast, the mobility of land is obviously insufficient. After 30 years of reform and opening up, relatively speaking, people, capital and technology have been basically matched with the development of our system and have been continuously optimized. Although great achievements have been made in land reform, there is still a gap between them and the requirements of economic development, and the relevant systems supporting them are lagging behind.

Figure 4 Interaction between land and capital, technology, manpower and system

(2) To recognize the multiple attributes and multiple functions of land

Land and capital are the important factors of production indispensable to modern economic and social development. After the land property rights are clear can become land assets, land assets can also enter the market, and constantly deepen the combination with capital, it becomes capital. Land itself is not mobile, but land capital is mobile, through the system improvement and innovation to open up the conversion channel between them, can promote the opening of the barrier of urban and rural integrated development, and promote the integrated development of urban and rural areas.

From the point of view of land itself (here mainly refers to rural land), it has at least three major attributes (Figure 5), namely, economic attributes, social attributes and natural attributes. From the economic attributes, land is priced, and should be continuously promoted through market allocation to improve the efficiency of land use. In terms of social attributes, land use should ensure fairness among land users on the one hand, and also play the function of guaranteeing social stability. In addition, land also has a natural attribute, which requires that our land can be utilized in perpetuity, and that our children and grandchildren can utilize the land in perpetuity within the scope and space of such land.

Figure 5 Three major attributes of land

Based on my personal understanding, land also has three major functions (Figure 6), namely, land performs the functions of resource, asset and capital. From the perspective of resources, we are required to allocate them efficiently, and resources have other functions such as ecological land and society in addition to becoming assets. Secondly, the function of assets, land should be tradable and transactable, and we should activate land assets and promote the appropriate flow of land. Thirdly, it is the function of capital, that is, it can be financed through land. If the connection with the capital market is opened up, land can be mobile. The flow of land capital has an important role to play in promoting social development, and at the same time tests the ability of our relevant management authorities.

Figure 6 The Three Functions of Land

For rural collective land, the three functions of land and the three attributes themselves have not been brought into full play in terms of their comprehensive benefits. For agricultural land, it means that the function of the resource has been realized, but the effective allocation has not happened, so the function of the land has not been fully realized under the current land system.

Three, urban and rural integrated development in several land use relations

Here mainly talk about urban land relations, rural land relations, the relationship between land and public **** product provision, the relationship between land allocation and industrial development, and so on several aspects of the content.

For urban land relations, in the first stage, land as urban accumulation is utilized in a crude way; in the second stage, along with industrial adjustment and urban function clarification, the level of intensive land utilization should be continuously improved; urban development to the end is the stage of rational growth. In the first stage, urban boundaries do not seem to exist, because at this stage if the city does not expand outward, the basis for urban development is gone, but under such expansion, from the point of view of resources, there is no way for the country to realize sustainable development, and it is necessary to stop this model of blindly expanding the development of the city. In this way, there is no doubt that the choice is to enter the second stage - a land-saving and intensive urban development model. As cities continue to grow and develop to a certain extent, it is necessary to realize urban-rural integration and rational growth, and to see whether the functions and industries of our cities can be moderately decentralized to rural areas to promote the economic and social development of rural areas. This has experience in foreign countries that we can learn from, and it is also a new element that we need to think about.

Our research shows that the correlation between urban boundary expansion, GDP growth and land concessions is very high, but there is also an inflection point, that is, the dependence of urban growth on land concessions is with the changes in the stage of economic development there is a tendency to reduce the dependence of the city's economy on land concessions to a certain degree of dependence on the decline of the industry must be upgraded in a timely manner, if not upgraded in time to the city of the subsequent will have no Power, this is a natural process. Because of this, the allocation of land in our country to comply with the laws of the entire economy, otherwise our city development to a certain stage will certainly go into decline.

Here, let's put forward a main line of urban land management: Improvement of urban land property rights system - urban land assetization - urban land capitalization - urban government land assets and land capitalization operation and management - rational distribution of urban land revenue. -feeding the countryside, focusing on urban-rural integration, etc., has been developed to the present intensive, economical and efficient utilization, urban-rural coordination, in fact, is a path or direction that must be chosen to comply with the laws of economic development.

About rural land, the peasant is not a proletarian, but is actually a proletarian who owns land, only that our system has neglected this point. We made a survey and made a simple assessment: the value of China's arable land in 20 trillion yuan, rural construction land is about 19 trillion, in 2005 the number of households in China's countryside is estimated at 25,222.6 households, the average rural household owns the economic value of land assets of about 153,000 yuan. But why is the standard of living and production still relatively low in some parts of our countryside? I think the constraining factor is still the system. We have a lot of worries about adopting a more liberal rural land system, fearing that social problems may arise after liberalization. In a modern society, all these can be controlled and avoided if the social security system and the management capacity of the Government keep pace with them, because our economic development has reached a stage where these problems must be solved. Since they must be solved, is it not possible to take a bigger step forward: the establishment of a unified land market, which tests how our administration can set up a set of effective systems, including unified urban and rural planning, use control, taxation, and so on. The assetization and capitalization of land requires a foundation of clear property rights and effective management.

Finally, a main line of rural land management is summarized as follows: to improve the rural land property rights system, to promote the assetization and capitalization of rural land, to reasonably distribute the land revenue, to regulate its reasonableness through taxation and transfer payments, to promote the construction of new rural areas and the process of urbanization, and finally to realize the integrated development of urban and rural areas.

In terms of rural land and public **** goods provision, we should gradually establish and improve the rural social security system, replace the social security function of rural land, and promote land mobility and trade. Rural land and industry to develop, not equal to the collective land must be agricultural. There is collective construction land and even collective industrial land in rural areas, but it is necessary to establish a scientific and strict planning and management system to ensure that collective construction or industrial development is standardized and orderly. In short, it is important that the configuration of land and industry is closely related, and can adjust the spatial layout of industry.

The last point is to open up the urban and rural integration of the market, the establishment of urban and rural harmony of society, it is necessary to work from the level of the land system, the management level, otherwise it is a simple and is not very effective adjustment.

Four, a few questions and thoughts

(A) how to establish a unified urban and rural land market

The first is the property rights, without property rights there is no market. The second is information, without adequate provision of information there is no market either. The third is services, including government or legal assistance, dispute handling, including intermediaries, assessment and consulting services, and a set of the same as in the city, the entire rural market needs a service system. The fourth is the market platform, that is, where to trade. The fifth is the distribution of proceeds and fairness in benefits. Because the value-added of the land does not go entirely to the farmers, which is due to the overall socio-economic development. The benefits due to the collective land owners and users should be left to the farmers, while some value-added generated by the public or the society should be fed back to the society, so as to achieve a certain degree of fairness. This requires a reasonable urban and rural unified land market tax system, which is regulated by the government through land tax.

(2) How to combine the rural land market and land finance

The interaction of rural infrastructure inputs, modern agricultural inputs, capitalization of assets, industrialization, urbanization, and so on, actually cannot be separated from capital. In order to introduce capital, there must be matching elements. The largest matching element in rural areas is land, and promoting the docking of land and capital is a management problem, not a system problem. In Bavaria, Germany, 60% of urban enterprises or non-farm enterprises are in rural areas, and 60% of people live in rural areas, including small towns. In such a very developed state in Germany, so many activities can be placed in the countryside, can we do so? We do not necessarily have to use the model of expropriating collective land in the countryside and replacing it in the city, but can we take some other measures. Modern technology, including communication and network technology, can actually achieve the so-called eco-offices, at least in the rural-urban interface, and some exploration should be made in this regard. Changes in the land system should lead to a real active "handshake" between urban and rural areas, not as a one-way activity, but to meet two-way needs. If such a system can be established, integrated urban-rural development should be realized. If it is only one-way, it will lead to all sorts of contradictions and disparities in development.

(3) The Logical Problem of Land Reform

Through the timely updating of technology and management, our rural land reform will benefit all parties and fulfill the "Pareto" improvement. Otherwise, it's useless to have one party benefit, because reform without ****-win is practically unsustainable.