Urban spill over vs. local urban sprawl: Entangling land-use regulations in the urban growth of China's megacities

Rather than a bad case of urban sprawl, the physical expansion of China's megacities may be viewed as a combination of ‘urban spill over’ and ‘local urban sprawl’. This paper reviews land use regulations in their institutional context and argues that conflicts in land use regulation are related to ideologies of land ownership and embedded in different planning doctrines. These hypotheses are investigated with special reference to Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong Province in southern China. The evidence suggests that entangled land use regulations for “urban” and “rural” land have imposed serious constraints on urban growth, while the contradictions of different policies and regulations in the use of rural lands for urban construction have led to intensive and unhealthy competition among stakeholders. As a result, not only have the costs of land conversion from rural to urban uses increased, but the spatial development of Guangzhou has been distorted. The implications of these failures for future policy are discussed with emphasis on the reform of the land use regulation system.     

德国规划的环境影响评价方法和步骤评介

研究目的 :为我国土地利用规划环境影响评价提供借鉴。研究方法 :文献资料法。研究结果 :介绍了德国战略环境影响评价的对象和评价步骤 ,并从适用范围和评价步骤方面比较了战略环境影响评价与项目环境影响评价的异同。     

The role of spatial planning in coastal management—A case study of Tuticorin coast (India)

The focus of coastal management in recent years has shifted from a sectoral plan to a holistic and integrated one. A key component of this integrated plan is spatial planning. This paper serves to highlight the role of spatial planning in coastal management by making use of a study done for the Tuticorin coast in India. A quantification of the land use/land cover changes in this region was studied along with the existing laws and policies governing the Indian coast with particular reference to Tuticorin, to determine their influence/impact on coastal land use/land cover. The results of the study show the disparity that exists between current land use practices and the laws that have been enforced to safeguard the coast. This can be overcome by means of implementing a more stable management plan that incorporates the spatial aspects of this coast, which has been presented.     

土地利用规划中土地利用空间结构和布局研究进展

土地利用空间结构和布局是土地利用规划工作中的关键所在,是决定土地利用规划是否科学合理的重要步骤;开展土地利用空间结构和布局优化研究有利于促进土地资源利用的集约高效,有利于新一轮的土地利用规划修编的编制和实施;综述了目前我国土地利用空间布局相关理论的研究进展,回顾了土地利用空间布局所采取的主要技术和手段,对我国土地利用空间结构和布局研究进行了展望;研究表明：我国土地利用空间布局理论研究有了长足进展,但还未形成严密的科学理论体系;在研究视角上,多注重耕地和基本农田保护,在“统筹兼顾”“以人为本”“理性发展”等方面应加强;在研究方法上,应加强现代数学模型与计算机空间模拟等方法在土地利用规划布局中的应用研究,加强参与式土地利用规划理论和方法研究,与传统的规划研究方法和手段相结合,形成客观、准确、科学的土地利用规划技术体系。     

Planning for social inclusion: The impact of socioeconomic inequities on the informal development of farmland in suburban Beijing

Informal development on farmland is not only a major problem facing thousands of people, but also a major challenge to land use planning. In the rapidly growing literature on informal land development in China, most authors claim that ambiguous property rights and the dual land tenure system are the primary factors involved. As a result, existing state-led land use planning responses to informal development are solely focused on strengthening the legal regulation of land development. This paper challenges this approach, on the basis of the theory of urban informality. By examining many illegal gated communities in suburban Beijing, the paper argues that the informal development of farmland on the urban fringe is the result of local grassroots groups spontaneously responding to socioeconomic inequities in the context of transition to a market economy. These inequities mainly concern distributive inequity, procedural inequity and contextual inequity in relation to land use. It appears that the ongoing market-oriented initiatives of the state government could worsen informal land development unless these socioeconomic inequalities at the local level are tackled. The growing civil society is another change to the state's control of informal land development in China's cities. A new land use planning system which has more concern for social inclusion rather than focusing on centralized control is imperative in China.     

土地利用规划环境影响层次分析和熵技术评价--以重庆市北碚区为例

研究目的:对土地利用规划环境影响评价进行实证研究,为土地利用规划修编提供依据.研究方法:层次分析法、熵技术.研究结果:构建了重庆市北碚区土地利用规划环境影响指标体系,用层次分析法确定指标权重,用熵技术对所得权重进行修正,进一步计算两套规划方案到理想点的距离,得出方案一是最优方案.研究结论:方案一针对北碚区的实际情况,侧重考虑了环境保护和生态建设的要求,对该区的土地利用规划修编具有重要的参考价值.     

Unravelling the dynamics of access to farmland in Tigray,Ethiopia: The ‘emerging land market’ revisited

This article uses ethnographic evidence from Tigray to revisit the debate on informal rural land markets in present-day Ethiopia. It explores informal farmland rental from a historico-anthropological, micro-analytical perspective in relation to the formal allocation of land use rights and to other informal land transfer practices. It shows how different rationales for land rental give rise to different socially embedded tenancy configurations. On the basis of this empirical evidence, the paper questions the appropriateness of the common idea that in Ethiopia ‘the land rental market is expanding’. It argues that research and policy thinking on land in Ethiopia could gain analytical power and relevance by adopting a less monolithic and abstract view on people's informal land transfer practices.     

The role of land planning policies in supporting housing affordability: The case of the Gaza Strip

The Gaza Strip suffers from a limited amount of land compared to the population growth rate. This imposes several challenges on urban planners in managing housing land in a way that protects housing affordability, especially for the low-income category. In general, housing in the Gaza Strip is unaffordable, for several reasons, including a recent abnormal rise in urban land prices. The study investigated this issue based on a survey of local housing specialists in addition to residents. The study found that to support housing affordability in Gaza, planning solutions that ensure efficient use of urban land in the first place need to be implemented. Furthermore, two parallel actions are required: (i) to implement measures that increase housing land supply and improve security of land tenure; and (ii) to establish a robust and effective housing finance system that fits the socio-economic situation in the Gaza Strip.     

More Than Socially Embedded: The Distinctive Character of 'Communal Tenure' Regimes in South Africa and its Implications for Land Policy

This article analyzes debates over tenure reform policy in post-apartheid South Africa, with a particular focus on the controversial Communal Land Rights Act of 2004. Land tenure systems in the 'communal areas' of South Africa are described as dynamic and evolving regimes within which a number of important commonalities and continuities over time are observable. Key underlying principles of pre-colonial land relations are identified, which informed the adaptation and modification of tenure regimes in the colonial era and under policies of segregation and apartheid, and continue to do so today. Exploring the policy implications of this analysis, the article suggests that alternative approaches to that embodied in the Communal Land Rights Act are required. The most appropriate approach is to make socially legitimate occupation and use rights, as they are currently held and practised, the point of departure for both their recognition in law and for the design of institutional frameworks for administering land.     

The institutional drivers of sustainable landscapes: a case study of the ‘Mayan Zone’ in Quintana Roo, Mexico

Research on the dynamics of tropical forest land use and cover change (LUCC) has focused on the three scenarios: (1) deforestation/degradation; (2) settled, degraded areas in recovery, and (3) sparsely settled, expansive, intact forest. Through examination of a central Quintana Roo, Mexico case study we propose a fourth scenario of a ‘sustainable landscape’: an inhabited, productively used, forested landscape that nonetheless shows little change or net gains in forest cover over the last 25 years. We use Landsat images to demonstrate a low incidence of net deforestation, 0.01% for the 1984–2000 period, the lowest recorded deforestation rate for southeastern Mexico. Institutional innovations such as an agrarian reform process that established large common property forests for non-timber forest product extraction, and later innovations such as sustainable forest management institutions have driven the outcome of low net deforestation, added to multiple organizational processes that promote sustainable land use.     

土地有偿使用改革与中国的城市发展--来自香港特别行政区公共土地批租制度的启示

研究目的:分析土地有偿使用改革对中国城市发展的意义及发展过程中出现的问题,与香港特别行政区的公共土地批租制度进行比较,探讨完善中国大陆土地有偿使用制度的方法与途经.研究方法:实证与比较研究.研究结果:借鉴香港特别行政区公共土地批租制度的经验教训,中国大陆应加快对土地权益的研究及相关法律规章的修订,逐步建立起房地产年税体系,同时强化政府对土地市场的宏观调控能力及对土地市场需求的适应性.研究结论:土地有偿使用改革对中国大陆城市发展的影响深远、意义重大,但和成熟的香港特别行政区公共土地批租制度相比,无论在经济上还是法律方面均存在诸多缺憾.     

Urban agriculture and land use in cities: An approach with the multi-functionality and sustainability concepts in the case of Antananarivo (Madagascar)

Urban planners are increasingly interested in agriculture around cities and have to decide whether to maintain or not areas of agricultural land use within and close to growing cities. There is therefore a need for researchers to design tools to guide public decision-making on land use. Various approaches, originating from different disciplines, may be adopted in this respect. We designed an interdisciplinary research program in order to test two related concepts: the “sustainability” and the “multi-functionality” of agriculture. We show that these concepts provide a useful framework for obtaining appropriate knowledge about urban agriculture, which urban planners could apply in real situations. In close collaboration with urban planners, we applied an interdisciplinary research methodology, based on common farm surveys and territorial approaches, to the Antananarivo area (Madagascar). The main functions analyzed were the food production and environmental roles of urban agriculture. Two aspects of sustainability were assessed: the farm sustainability and the territorial sustainability, with expert scores. This approach identified a wide diversity of farming systems that performed differently, depending on their intra- or suburban location. The food supply function appeared to be important not only for fresh produce but also for rice consumption. The function of protection against flooding is now important and this importance will increase with climate change. A diagnosis of sustainability was made and discussed with urban planners: several farming systems and zones were identified in which agriculture was considered important as a means of maintaining or developing the food supply, employment and incomes, and even landscape or environmental quality. We also identified other areas in which poor production conditions and/or the negative effects of urbanization on agriculture jeopardized its sustainability. This methodology appeared to be useful for determining the most appropriate role of urban agriculture in the land-use planning of this city. Our study raises new questions on the subject and should lead to more focused research programmes. We discuss several points of interest and the limitations and possible extension of this method.     

The identification and assessment of ecological risks for land consolidation based on the anticipation of ecosystem stabilization: A case study in Hubei Province,China

The purpose of this study is to identify and classify the ecological risks in land consolidation, and to develop a framework of the theory and method to assess the change of ecological risk degree before and after land consolidation. Environmental impacts and ecological risks of land consolidation have recently drawn much attention, and there are two opposing viewpoints to assess these impacts and risks in the academia of China. Both viewpoints result from the bias of assessment anticipation. Land consolidation includes four main engineering aspects in China, and ecological succession from start of land consolidation to ecosystem stabilization should pass three phases. Different ecological impacts and risks of land consolidation rise from different phases of ecological successions. According to the climax theory of ecology, we developed a framework of the ecological risk assessment based on the anticipation of ecosystem stabilization (ERABAES) for land consolidation. We applied analytical hierarchical processing (AHP) method to the data resources from the land consolidation project in Southern China to allocate weightings to the indices of ecological risk (ER), and to set up an integrated index system for the ecological risk identification. This integrated index system encompasses the ecological risks with three factors (water, soil and biology) and 14 indices. The results of the project show: (1) The ER is reduced from 58.02 to 28.8 after land consolidation and the degree of ecological risk is down from Degree III to Degree IV. (2) According to the element analysis, the water ER is reduced from 21.53 to 6.16, its contribution to reduce the ecological risk is 53%; the reduced ERs of soil and biology are respectively 12.79 and 1.06, their contribution of ecological risk reduce is lower than water.