Transforming rural housing land to farmland in Chongqing, China: The land coupon approach and farmers’ complaints

Abstract

Rapid urbanization in China since 1978 has created enormous pressure on farmland, which is encroached by not only urban expansion but also rural construction of peasant housing and services. As a land-use planning and management response, the Central Government endorsed a policy that bundles the reduction of rural construction land with the increase of urban built-up area, thus making it possible to connect the two seemingly contradictory processes between adding on to and taking off from the farmland bank by reclamation of rural construction sites and urban expansion respectively. This paper contributes to an emerging literature on the study of transformation of rural construction land by e..