A,

Redesigning Rural Life: Relocation and In Situ Urbanization in a Shandong _77

Village OF TECH UTE0.y by JUL 2 92014 Saul Kriger Wilson LIBRARIES Submitted to the School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Science at the MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY September 2014 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2014. All rights reserved. Signature redacted Author...... Major Departure in Humanities: Asian and Asian Diaspora Studies Department of Mathematics Signature redacted July 9, 2014 Certified by. Yasheng Huang Professor of Global Economics and Management Sloan School of Management Signature redacted Thesis Supervisor Accepted by Ian Condry Chairman /i / Deportment of Global Studies and Languages Accepted by .. Signature redacted ...... Deborah Fitzgerald Kenan Sahin Dean School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences 2 Redesigning Rural Life: Relocation and In Situ Urbanization in a Shandong Village by Saul Kriger Wilson

Submitted to the School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences on July 9, 2014, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Science

Abstract The Chinese government's attempts to improve village public service provision, limit the loss of arable land, and coordinate urbanization have converged in land readjust- ment schemes to rebuild some villages as more densely populated "rural communities." I present a case study on a financially troubled, partially complete village reconstruc- tion project in Shandong. Villagers outside the leadership were minimally involved in project planning, and the village leadership put pressure on villagers to move. How- ever, the pressure to move was not due to an absence of formal property rights for villagers; reluctant villagers agreed to move because they could not afford to offend the village government. I argue that architectural and urban design were central to villagers' reactions to village reconstruction and to the project's social and economic outcomes. The design of the relocation townhomes sought to engineer the urbanization of villagers' lifestyles; so far, although some aspects of village life have changed, many villagers have persisted in "rural" behaviors. This is partly because, at least in the short term, the design and urban amenities of the case village's relocation housing constitute a burden on the poor, the elderly, and the crippled. These populations, who do not like the design of the new houses, are the most likely to live in them year round; younger and wealthier villagers, who often like the new housing more, spend much of the year engaged in migrant labor. Despite apparent local control over the project, villagers did not perceive village elections as a means of resolving their concerns.

Thesis Supervisor: Yasheng Huang Title: Professor of Global Economics and Management Sloan School of Management

3 4 Acknowledgments

I owe many thanks to my two advisors on this project, HUANG Yasheng and Ian Condry, for taking me on and helping me this past year. They were always happy to make time to chat about my work. Ian generously found funding from the Depart- ment of Foreign Languages & Literatures to support my fieldwork, without which my research would have been exclusively in the dungeon-like bowels of a dull library. Yasheng helped push me to consider the longer term economic consequences of village reconstruction and to look at it in the context of urban economics. Both have offered substantive and constructive feedback.

This project would not have been possible without the help of HOU Yue and Isabelle Tsakok. Both generously shared their academic contacts in China, helping me get into China in January 2014 and, in turn, to find a field site. In China, PENG Chao of the Ministry of Agriculture's Research Center for Rural Economy introduced me to ZHANG Xiaorong and thereby made my fieldwork possible; just as importantly, he helped mentor me as a researcher. "Max" MENG Tianguang invited me to Tsinghua University, hosted me in its Political Science Department, and was always eager to help; it was through affiliation with Tsinghua that I conducted my fieldwork. HU Biliang of Beijing Normal University arranged a seminar in which I presented my preliminary findings and received helpful feedback.

This thesis stems from research conducted with ZHANG Xiaorong, with LIU Jia serving as a translator. Both were invaluable to the collection of data. Xiaorong helped shape the direction of the research and was a steadfast advocate for keeping the inquiry focused. The fieldwork itself is best seen as a joint work of Xiaorong and myself. LIU Jia contributed a knack for conversation that made our interviews far more productive when she was present. Her interest in the changing cost of living proved prescient. Besides their substantive contributions to this research, both Xiaorong and LIU Jia deserve credit for tolerating the intensive effort that was our week or so of fieldwork: long days, cold weather, the occasional awkwardness of human subjects requirements, and a temperamental boss (me).

5 Of course, the project was completely dependent upon information from local officials and villagers. While I cannot thank them by name, they provided essential insight into local opinions and conditions. In preparing to go to China, I had planned to study rural inequality. When I discovered that the village I was studying was being rebuilt, I decided to change my focus to village reconstruction. I was prepared better to do so thanks to conversations with XIAO Yuan and YIN Jie during the preceding semester, and their advice and conversation has been valuable during the preparation of this thesis. The written project presented here was shaped by several years of coursework and discussions with friends and colleagues. Dan Borgnia, although not particularly interested China, contributed his trademark constructive disagreeableness to many a long conversation on rural China. This thesis is a richer, better thought through product as a result. Lucas Orona and Anna Ho similarly withstood many an unsought conversation on my research; my parents, W. Stephen Wilson and Norma Kriger, were victims of many more. Conversations with and, in some cases, written feedback from Iza DING, Nifer Fasman, HOU Yue, Isabelle Tsakok, and ZHANG Xiaorong have helped shape this thesis. Of course, what errors remain are mine alone.

6 Contents

1. Introduction ...... 9 2. Background on Village Reconstruction Programs ...... 12 2.1. Rural Planning ...... 13 2.2. Land Policies ...... 14 2.3. Prevalence & Prognosis ...... 16 3. R esearch on V illage R econstruction ...... 19 3.1. China ...... 19 3.2. A broad ...... 21 4. B ackground on O ld Spring V illage ...... 26 4.1. M ethods ...... 26 4.2. G eograp hy ...... 26 4.3. Econom y ...... 27 4.4. D em ograp hy ...... 28 4.5. Intra-V illage M igration ...... 29 S. Project Plan ...... 30 5.1. O verarching Plan ...... 30 5.2. Planning Process ...... 31 5.3. Financing and Subsidies ...... 33 5.4. N atural Villages ...... 35 5.5. Construction Land ...... 36 5.6. Com m ercial D evelopm ent Plans ...... 36 5.7. Relocation H om es ...... 37 6. Relocation and Com pensation ...... 39 6.1. V illager M otivations ...... 39 6.2. Methods to Extract Signatures & Retribution ...... 41 6.3. Com pensation ...... 46 6.4. Success Rate ...... 49 7. R elocation H ousing: D esign & Attitudes ...... 51 7.1. Stairs, Cripples, & the Elderly ...... 51 7.2. A griculture ...... 52 7.3. Utilities ...... 54 7.4. Room Size & Quality ...... 55 7.5. D esign Process ...... 56 8. U rbanization & Econom ic R am ifications ...... 58 8.1. U rban Layout ...... 58 8.2. Stores ...... m...... m...... - ....M...... m...... 59 8.3. Social ...... - ...... 60 8.4. Inequality ...... mm...... - .... 62 9. Politics ...... m...... m..... m...... mm...... 65 9.1. Politicization of the Project ...... i...... m...... 65 9.2. Electoral Im plications ...... 65 10. Conclusion ...... 69 11. B ibliography ...... 73

7 8 1. Introduction

In the past decade, Chinese rural reconstruction policies have increasingly emphasized the provision of public services and improved housing in rural areas, with urban-style planning now required at the village level. Meanwhile, aiming to preserve farmland, the national government has restricted changes in land use, but has allowed some jurisdictions to reclaim rural houses as farmland in exchange for the right to construct on farmland at the urban fringe. Combined, these programs have led to the reconstruction of thousands of villages as more densely populated settlements, relocating millions of villagers. While still small on a Chinese scale, these projects are becoming more widespread. Village reconstruction is a relatively new and understudied phenomenon in rural China. It provides an opportunity to investigate not only interactions between rural

Chinese and their government, but also the impacts of in situ urbanization (jiudi chengshihua 3kW!IAi{L).

I present a case study of one such relocation project in rural Shandong. At the time of fieldwork, the project was only partially complete, having encountered financial difficulties. My main finding is that architectural and urban design were central to the outcome of the project Although the government was generous with offers of compensation, most villagers were nevertheless reluctant to move because of the design of the relocation housing. When they agreed to move, it was often due to pressurefrom the village government

Moreover, the design of the relocation housing mediated potentially significant changes in social interaction. And the economic impacts of the project-particularlyon the poor-were products of housing design.

9 Although few villagers earned most of their income from farming, they were by and large loathe to move to housing that they perceived as too urban, without the traditional courtyard and therefore little space for farm animals and tools. The poor and elderly did not want to move, citing the stairs in the new houses, the added cost of utilities, and the design's unsuitability for farmers. But attitudes towards the project were by no means uniform. Some, particularly in the elite, were delighted to have new houses with modern utilities. Despite the importance of design to the villagers, much of the government hierarchy overseeing the project considered design to be of trifling importance.

Given that most villagers did not want to move, offers of compensation proved insufficient to motivate compliance. Village leaders and the developer thus assured participation by pressuring villagers to move. Still, I identified no-one who had been forced to move without first "voluntarily" signing their name. The legalisms of property rights were thus guarded while their substance was undermined: villagers largely considered themselves powerless vis-A-vis the village government, which they feared could punish recalcitrance. Hence they complied with village leaders' urgings that they move. For similar reasons, they did not consider village elections a suitable way to resolve disagreements over village policy.

It is difficult to say with certainty how villager attitudes will evolve as the project is completed and whether villagers will adjust to their new housing; much of the concern may stem from distrust of government and discomfort with change, although the economic concerns of lost domestic animals and increased utility bills-again, products of design- seemed a real and immediate threat to household self-sufficiency. But much of the long- term impact of projects like this will be social. My preliminary observations on the case

10 village suggest that families may be dividing earlier as a result of the segmented design of the new housing. Moreover, there appeared to be an increase in social activity on the street and centered around two new stores.

Yet economically the villagers who had moved had not adjusted much: many clung to their livestock and resisted using modern utilities. Indeed, the relocation project seemed to follow a questionable economic logic. The saved construction land quota was valuable for urban areas. But within the village, the increased farmland that should be created will be of little economic value relative to earnings from migrant labor. Many of the villagers spend much of the year in urban areas as migrant workers. While in the long run the new utilities and housing will probably improve quality of life for some, it is unclear how many villagers will actually be living at home; those that are in the village are generally elderly or crippled, and the new homes are not suited to their needs.

11 2. Background on Village Reconstruction Programs

The Chinese government's campaign to Build a New Socialist Countryside (shehui zhuyi xin nongcunjianshe$ di$$'t) has brought a raft of new policies aimed at narrowing persistent rural-urban gaps in income and public services. In little more than a decade, rural hukou (P HI) bearers have gone from heavily taxed to subsidized; new healthcare, pension, and minimum livelihood insurance schemes have been set up; and government at various levels has focused increasingly on improved public goods provision in rural areas."

Among other things, these new policies have entailed efforts to improve rural utility provision, expand and enhance the road network, rebuild or refurbish dilapidated houses, and broaden access to telecommunications. 2 In many villages, this has been implemented in the form of wholesale village reconstruction, an expensive and controversial undertaking that seeks not only to provide these public services but also to impose an urban form on rural China.3 Such reconstruction projects lie at the intersection of rural rejuvenation policies and land policies, which often provide the motivation and financing necessary to undertake them.

1 See, e.g., Anna L. Ahlers, Rural Policy Implementation in Contemporary China: New Socialist Countryside, Routledge Studies on China in Transition 47 (London; New York: Routledge, 2014); Kristen Looney, "The Rural Developmental State: Modernization Campaigns and Peasant Politics in China, Taiwan and South Korea" (Harvard University, 2012), http://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/9807308. 2 See, for example, t A - 4 tj1 2005, 2006 for instructions from the central government 3 Interestingly, similar attempts to provide improved public services by rebuilding whole communes were proposed, although apparently not implemented, during the Great Leap Forward. The model village of Dazhai, Shanxi, however, was rebuilt with new housing in the 1960s, and some other villages tried to follow suit. See Duanfang Lu, Remaking Chinese Urban Form: Modernity, Scarcity, and Space, 1949-2005, Planning, History, and Environment Series (London; New York: Routledge, 2005); Jijun Zhao and Jan Woudstra, "'In Agriculture, Learn from Dazhai': Mao Zedong's Revolutionary Model Village and the Battle against Nature," Landscape Research 32, no. 2 (April 2007): 171-205, doi:10.1080/01426390701231564; David Zweig, Freeing China's Farmers:Rural Restructuring in the Reform Era, Socialism and Social Movements (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1997). Lu 101-122; Zhao and Woudstra 184-188; Zweig 137-183, 149.

12 2.1. Rural Planning As the central government sought to improve rural China, rural life was increasingly subject to government criticism for its disorderly and unhygienic arrangement. Indeed, government documents routinely refer to the "dirty, chaotic, and poor village environment"

(nongcun zang, luan, cha de zhuangkuan &ktJ, AL, & (J VIA).4 In 2006, the national

Ministry of Construction endorsed village renovation (cunzhuang zhengzhi t'tltie) as a

"core element of the campaign to Build a New Socialist Countryside" in a decidedly exploratory guidance document, which enthusiastically called for experimentation.5 A year later, the national Planning Law was revised to require each village to prepare a long range plan, which was to include details not only of land use and roads, but also of utilities and services often new to villages, including running water, sewerage, and garbage collection.

Such plans, moreover, were to protect arable land and separate residences from livestock-all while abiding by the oft-repeated national policy to "honor local conditions"

(yingdang yindizhiyi A' & BIt 0' A:). Even the traditionally urban concept of functional zoning, wherein different economic activities are separated spatially, was incorporated. 6

As David Bray observes, this urban-cum-rural planning is a grand project in social engineering; in his case study, he describes a particular village's plan as a "coordinated and comprehensive program for urbanizing the village and transforming its residents" guided

"k W I A ," March 2012, http://www.crc.org.cn/Portals//pdf/%E6%96%BO%E5%85%A8%E5%9BBDE5%9C%9FE5%9C% BO%E6%95%B4%E6%B2%BB%E8%A7%84%E5%88%92%EF%BC%88%E5%BD%BO%E5%88%B7%E7% A8%BF%EF%BC%89.pdf; Lior Rosenberg, "Urbanising the Rural," China Perspectives, no. 3 (2013): 63-71. For an extensive discussion, see Rosenberg 64-65. s# f # , 2005, http://www.mohurd.gov.cn/zcfg/jsbwj_0/jsbwjczghyjs/20061 1/t20061101_157348.html. 6 rP$A R -#40W A * t, 2007, http://www.gov.cn/flfg/2007-10/28/content_788494.htm; David Bray, "Urban Planning Goes Rural," China Perspectives, no. 3 (2013): 53-62. Sections 18 and 29 of the law. See Bray for a far more in depth discussion of the history, purposes, and implementation of village planning.

13 by "highly centralized [...] detailed standards and specifications for design and construction."7

In these various intentions for such projects are the roots of their many Chinese names: "village reconstruction" (jiucun gaizao I14ff i or cunzhuang gaizao #ti ),

"village renovation" (cunzhuang zhengzhi *T1 EMI), the construction of "new village congregation points" (xincun juju dian i 14 R A), and "rural communityization"

(nongcun shequ hua t$f tIE), used at times interchangeably and at times to denote gradations of village reconstruction. 8

2.2. Land Policies For many of these reconstruction projects, financing and government motivation come from land policies that tie together urban and rural construction land. The experimental Program to Link Urban and Rural Construction Land (chengxiang jiansheyongdi zengjian guagou shidian iQ# R1 i seeks to facilitate continued expansion of urban centers by shrinking the rural built-up area. Rural land can be labeled construction land (jiansheyongdi A*AA) or farming land (gengdi #A), among other things. Houses, factories, and the like can legally be built only on construction land, although illegal constructions on farming land are common. The national government, increasingly concerned about food security, has required that the total quantity of farming land be preserved and placed annual quotas on the conversion of farmland to construction

7 Bray, "Urban Planning Goes Rural." 54,62. 8 In the case village, the project was often referred to as 1H # i #, although some township and provincial documents used A#-L 4 It . For a discussion of the complexity of the term "rural community," see Looney, "The Rural Developmental State." 323-329.

14 land. The Program, still in the experimental (shidian i4r') stage but expanded to 29 provinces in 2013,9 permits villages to relocate to smaller plots of land, thereby minimizing their use of construction land. The resulting surplus construction land can then be converted to farmland, and the increase in farmland can be used to offset an increase in construction land elsewhere in the same county or district1 0-and the current boom (some say bubble) in urban real estate means there is a seemingly insatiable demand for more urban construction land, as urban expansion requires it. Since rural land is collectively owned, it is the village that is paid for the transfer of the construction land quota, which finances the relocation project. So long as urban real estate prices hold up, this Program permits urban growth while transferring funds from the wealthier urban areas to the rural countryside."

Such policies, of course, are subject to myriad interpretations. One can see them as

Kristen Looney does: a government land grab,12 taking the construction rights of villagers and shunting them into relocation housing in the process. But such a perspective is too narrow. First, these relocation projects are partly rooted in a grandiose scheme to urbanize ruralites without moving them to the cities. Moreover, the villagers do not lose land overall, they simply lose construction rights, in exchange for which some of the wealth generated by urban expansion is transferred to areas far from the cities.

9 " N I * X If 4 29 f )k 4 )A A," A R , October 24, 2013, http://house.people.com.cn/n/2013/1024/c164220-23316056.html. 10 Construction land quota can then be traded between counties; see Cai's discussion of "flying land." Meina Cai, "Land-Locked Development: The Local Political Economy of Institutional Change in China" (University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2012). 11 Much appreciation to Yuan Xiao for helping explain this policy to me. Any errors are in my understanding. 12 Looney, "The Rural Developmental State." 274-282.

15 2.3. Prevalence & Prognosis In considering these village reconstruction projects, it is essential to estimate the scale of the project. Recent policies provide some insight, if not clarity. The 2014-2020

National Urbanization Plan calls for furthering village renovations (kaizhan cunzhuang zhengzhi ffK EVAA), singling out for endorsement the renovation of villages emptied out by migration (zhengzhi kongxincun ) and the rebuilding of dilapidated homes (jiben wancheng nongcun weifang gaizao A*'t*'tAf ), urging not only the improvements in utilities just discussed, but also the provision of urban amenities such as stores and restaurants. 13 In this sense, policy seeks to urbanize the economics of rural

China (see section 8.4).

By contrast, the new standards for renovating villages put forward by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development at the end of 2013 (predating the Urbanization

Plan) seek to constrict the meaning of "renovation" (zhengzhi lf). Admonishing planners to "minimize the destruction of homes and avoid large construction projects or cravings for things big and foreign" (shao chaifang, bimian da chai dajian he tan da qiu yang '/ *F,

' the new standards chastise them at length (and in unusual detail) to include villagers in the planning process.14 After clarifying that villagers' traditional homes are to be respected, the Ministry's policy details the new utilities that are to be installed and calls for efforts to address wasted land (including that occupied by

"is A fr M :Jit 0 (2014 - 2020 4) ," March 2014, http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2014- 03/16/c_119791251.htm. Article 22. 1 &4)t 1 i % All 4 $1 )J & , 2013, http://www.mohurd.gov.cn/zcfg/jsbwj_0/jsbwjczghyjs/201312/t20131226_216680.html. Section 7. Sections 8-10.

16 abandoned housing).15 While planners in many parts of China have met these goals by wholesale village reconstruction and merger, Looney describes a model, adopted in

Ganzhou, Jiangxi, that focuses more on public provision of infrastructure while convincing villagers to rebuild their own houses.

It is useful to step back even farther in time to mid-2013, when Hill Break Town

(zhen A),16 in which the case village is located, adopted its Master Plan for 2012-2030.

This plan calls for eliminating over forty of the town's seventy-plus administrative villages.

A dozen are to be absorbed by the town seat itself. Of the remainder, many are to be merged into existing villages, resulting in a total of fifteen (rebuilt) rural communities

(nongcun shequ A&if ii) with about fifteen (rebuilt) satellite villages (shequjumin dian $

E /) with attention paid so that villagers remain within 30 minutes' walking distance of their farming land.1 7 Although mergers of administrative villages have been observed elsewhere,1 8 Hill Break Town is not necessarily representative: it is among two hundred

Shandong towns labeled as demonstration sites (baizhen jianshe shifan xingdong WIfi4

-iN f ?Tl J);19 and Shandong, in turn, has been exceptionally zealous in its village

1s Ibid. Sections 12 and 13. 16 In the case study area, the hierarchy, from center to grassroots, is as follows: national government, provincial government, city government, district government, town government, village, and small group or team. 17 "Hill Break Town ,43% ," 2013. The plan does indeed claim to cover a time period before its adoption. The case village is itself to be a satellite village. 18 Kan Liu, "Upheaval in Chinese Villages: A Case Study of Rural Land Expropriation for 'Large Scale' Commercial Farming in Rural China, LDPI Working Paper #18," February 2013, http://www.iss.nl/flleadmin/ASSETS/iss/Research-and-projects/Research-networks/LDPI/LDPIWP_18.pd f; Jean Oi, "Ways and Consequences of Allocating Village Land Rights" (presented at the "Why We Care About Land Grabbing in China" Workshop, Harvard Fairbank Center, March 8, 2014); Rosenberg, "Urbanising the Rural." 19 The program's name notwithstanding, there have been two rounds of one hundred townships each.

17 .4-J1 e=4z=_NAi219W22zkXAWW_

reconstruction movement.20 But the scale of Hill Break Town's plans suggests the potential

immensity of the national village reconstruction movement, and even the relative modesty

of this case study, in which no villages were merged.

Indeed, newspaper reports suggest that Shandong has used 107.3 billion RMB

(USD$17 billion) to construct 1,914 rebuilt villages, with relocation housing for 448,400

households. 21 This monetary figure represents an enormous, concentrated investment in

these villages. On a per household basis, this comes to a one-time 240,000 RMB

investment-far in excess of annual rural household income. In Shandong, 203,500 mu of

construction land quota was saved and 303,400 mu of land reclaimed according to 2014

figures. Nationally, by early 2012, 1,481,000 mu had been reclaimed as part of the Linking

Program; 22 in 2013 a further 900,000 mu of quota were associated with the Linking

Program.23 Approximating based on these figures, about 4 million rural households have

likely been impacted.

20 Rosenberg, "Urbanising the Rural." 69. 21 " f V J 2 ) ," )kA H , May 10, 2014, http://f.sdnews.com.cn/sdcj/201405/t20140510_1606694.htm. 22 "4 - 14Alljh * (2011-2015 4) ," March 16,2011, http://www.tdzyw.com/2012/0704/17747.html. 14. 23"NI* jp** 29 VfV#i4i P." These 2013 and 2006 to 2011 or 2012 numbers are not directly comparable but are the best immediately available.

18 3. Research on Village Reconstruction

3.1. China Since village reconstruction in China has occurred mostly in the past decade and only accelerated more recently, literature on village reconstruction is spread thinly across the various forms such projects take. I include, for the sake of comparison, several articles discussing rebuilt villages in which the villagers lost their land even while retaining their village hukou.

David Bray traces policies that promoted increased residential density in villages from the mid-1990s in Jiangsu, Shanghai, and Zhejiang, showing that they predate the

Building a New Socialist Countryside campaign. Based upon a case study of a Jiangsu village, he argues that once they were adopted into national policy in the mid-2000s, standards for village design became strikingly detailed, granting little autonomy to village planners.24 Lior Rosenberg, studying one county each in Anhui and Shandong provinces, also finds that state design goals tend to trump villager wellbeing during the implementation of village reconstruction projects. 25 Meanwhile, Kristen Looney focuses on the Ganzhou, Jiangxi, model of village reconstruction, where implementation was at least initially less micromanaged than in Anhui or Shandong: cadres assembled and oversaw village-level peasant councils which sidestepped village governments to organize families to rebuild their own houses-albeit according to a menu of blueprints provided by the state.26

2 4 Bray, "Urban Planning Goes Rural." 25 Rosenberg, "Urbanising the Rural." 26 Looney, "The Rural Developmental State."

19 The literature is split on the fundamental question of villager approval. Jean Oi, whose research appears to span a broad collection of villages, argues that most villagers

(and indeed the national government) do not approve of how village reconstruction and mergers have been implemented. She suggests that spelling out on paper who has property rights (both for land and for collective enterprises) would help avoid much controversy, and that the level of compensation does not always predict villager approval.27

She observes that protests seem a more frequent response to village reconstruction in developed areas-although Rosenberg argues that village reconstruction is more suited to richer areas and is inappropriate in terms of finances and lifestyle for poorer areas. Joining

Oi in doubting popular support for village reconstruction are Kan Liu and Lynette Ong, whose works focus on peasants who have lost their farmland. Liu, based on a case study of an Anhui village, describes villagers who have been forced into financially insecure leisure by the loss of their fields. 2 8 Ong, working on the outskirts of Hefei, Anhui, similarly observes that as villagers lose not only their fields but also the productive assets associated with courtyard homes, their incomes fall. 2 9 Both note the burden of increased utility bills.

This case study focuses on a village where residents kept their agricultural land rights, but nevertheless largely disliked the village reconstruction project. Property rights did not play a big role in village discourse. Rather, the architectural and urban design of the new housing was unpopular with villagers, particularly the poor.

27 Oi, "Ways and Consequences of Allocating Village Land Rights." 28 Liu, "Upheaval in Chinese Villages: A Case Study of Rural Land Expropriation for 'Large Scale' Commercial Farming in Rural China, LDPI Working Paper #18." 29 Lynette H. Ong, "State-Led Urbanization in China: Skyscrapers, Land Revenue and 'Concentrated Villages,"' The China Quarterly 217 (2014): 162-79, doi:10.1017/SO305741014000010.

20 Bray, - Looney, and Rosenberg take a more optimistic view towards village reconstruction. While each discusses the presence of some opposition, overall they find support for schemes that provide new housing and better public services. Meina Cai, approaching the question from a broader land policy perspective, shows that in Chongqing and Zhejiang local governments convince villagers to voluntarily give up their rights to rural construction land by offering generous welfare benefits to participants.30

3.2. Abroad China's efforts to rebuild, relocate, and consolidate villages combine two widely used patterns of development strategy: land readjustment and villagization. Land readjustment, particularly popular on the urban fringe, concentrates a plot's original residents on less land, freeing up the rest for development or to make way for public services. Villagization, attempted widely in Africa over the past half century, consists of moving scattered rural households together into often tightly planned, dense village settlements.

Land readjustment has been widely used in a host of developed countries-

Germany, Japan, and the Netherlands to name a few-to sidestep eminent domain procedures when organizing urban development or furnishing public services. In urbanizing areas, land readjustment allows landowners to relocate to new houses taking up less land but in the same area, thereby making way for increased density and ideally allowing residents to capture some of the land value increment for themselves. In these cases and even in rural land readjustment, practiced routinely in the Netherlands,

30 Cai, "Land-Locked Development: The Local Political Economy of Institutional Change in China."

21 government can use space freed up by land readjustment to construct roads and install utilities; sometimes additional land is transferred to government to finance such services. 31

The Chinese model embodied in village reconstruction and the Program to Link

Urban and Rural Construction Land readjusts rural households to free up construction land

quota-not so much land itself-for use in urbanization. The funds generated from

urbanization not only finance the readjustment but also the provision of public services to

the rural area. While the policy is one of land readjustment, the Chinese model differs

sharply from those in other countries. Land readjustment is, Hong argues, often a response

to strong property rights, as the state seeks to accomplish planning goals through the

cooperation of strong landowners when it lacks the wherewithal to simply expropriate

land.32 Yet even in such strong property rights regimes as Japan, land readjustment can

involve coercion by local officials or other landowners33-although perhaps more modest

than what I observe in this case study. In theory, and as described by local officials, Chinese

village reconstruction is land readjustment done by the book: the project is arranged by

consensus among its participants, and laws limit the ability of holdouts to impede the

project.34 The reality can be far less participatory.

31 Dutch rural land readjustment in many ways resembles Chinese rural land reallocation, seeking a more efficient allotment of agricultural fields. See Barrie Needham, "The Search for Greater Efficiency: Land Readjustment in The Netherlands," in Analyzing Land Readjustment: Economics, Law, and Collective Action, ed. Yu-hung Hong and Barrie Needham (Cambridge, Mass: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2007), 115-33. 32 Yu-hung Hong, "Assembling Land for Urban Development," in Analyzing Land Readjustment: Economics, Law, and Collective Action, ed. Yu-hung Hong and Barrie Needham (Cambridge, Mass: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2007), 3-33. 15. 33 Andre Sorensen, "Consensus, Persuasion, and Opposition: Organizing Land Readjustment in Japan," in Analyzing Land Readjustment: Economics, Law, and Collective Action, ed. Yu-hung Hong and Barrie Needham (Cambridge, Mass: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2007), 89-114; Yu-hung Hong, "Law, Reciprocity, and Economic Incentives," in Analyzing Land Readjustment: Economics, Law, and Collective Action, ed. Yu-hung Hong and Barrie Needham (Cambridge, Mass: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2007), 183-94. Hong 190. 34 Hong, "Assembling Land for Urban Development" 18-20.

22 Land readjustment is, in Chinese village reconstruction, similar to villagization.

Village reconstruction in some parts of China resembles villagization more fully than in others. In interior areas, such as Sichuan and Chongqing, where villagers can be spread widely across the landscape, village reconstruction is indeed villagization; in areas, such as in the present case study, with more densely populated villages to begin with, village reconstruction merely shares important characteristics with villagization.

First and foremost, villagization is almost always undertaken with a developmental aim, often with government commitments to provide better services to the more accessible, denser village.35 This developmental purpose does not always pan out. Government promises of improved services are often not delivered, 36 and particularly in 1970s

Tanzania and 1980s Ethiopia, agriculture has suffered and shortages ensued when villagers find themselves far from their old fields or relocated to areas unsuitable for their traditional farming methods. 37

Much of this, however, is rooted in the poverty of the peasants relocated and the weakness of the states relocating them. Indeed, it is somewhat amazing that villagization was accomplished at all in some of these countries, let alone for millions of peasants at

35 There have of course been other motivations. Whittaker discusses 1960s villagization as an anti- insurgency method in Kenya, and-with far more relevance to China (see Liu and Ong)-Davison reports on current villagization in Ethiopia that clears land for commercial agriculture. But in both these cases as well, the ability to provide better services to denser village settlements is a government sales point. Hannah Whittaker, "Forced Villagization during the Shifta Conflict in Kenya, Ca. 1963-1968," InternationalJournal of African HistoricalStudies 45, no. 3 (October 2012): 343-64; William Davison, "In Ethiopia, a Plan Known as 'Villagization' Has Freed up Vast Tracts for Foreign Corporations," ChristianScience Monitor, June 10, 2013, 18. 36 James C. Scott, Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed, Yale Agrarian Studies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998); Whittaker, "Forced Villagization during the Shifta Conflict in Kenya, Ca. 1963-1968." Scott 247-252, Whittaker 355 37 Elizabeth Daley, "Land and Social Change in a Tanzanian Village 1: Kinyanambo, 1920s-1990," Journal of Agrarian Change 5, no. 3 (July 2005): 363-404, doi:10.1111/j.1471-0366.2005.00105.x; Graham Thiele, "The Tanzanian Villagisation Programme: Its Impract on Household Production in Dodoma," CanadianJournal of African Studies / Revue Canadienne Des ktudes Africaines 20, no. 2 (January 1, 1986): 243-58, doi:10.2307/484872; Scott, Seeing like a State. Daley 388-389, Thiele 243-244, 249, Scott 247-252

23 breakneck pace.38 But much was accomplished scrappily: Daley describes Tanzanian peasants told to build their own houses after their old ones were burnt down-an effective way to force relocation; in her case village, the village plan was developed after the resettlement process. 3 9 (Yet after villagization a new school and several stores were opened.) These African attempts at villagization differ markedly from the Chinese program in scale-at least relative to their respective national populations-and in the resources the state can offer; while some African programs, such as in Rwanda and Zimbabwe, sought to improve land use efficiency, it tended not to be a foundational purpose.40 Perhaps most importantly, many Chinese peasants are wealthy-and China's countryside is developed- by comparison to their villagized African counterparts.

Yet in the implementation of African villagization schemes, particularly in Tanzania, there are clear parallels with the Chinese case. Village siting and design were often not thoughtful-they were frequently done on the fly with an eye towards standardization and ease of governance.41 Indeed, William Munro and James Scott argue that a secondary purpose of Zimbabwean and Tanzanian villagization, respectively, was the extension of state power into the countryside, and that planned villages were not only easier for the state to govern but simpler for it to comprehend-a point also fundamental to the

38 At least 5 million were moved in Tanzania (Scott 223) and 4.6 million in Ethiopia (Scott 248); in Rwanda about 2 million were villagized in the late 1990s (Isaksson 399). Villagers were sometimes moved in a mere day; planning could be done in hours (Scott 234). Scott, Seeing like a State; Ann-Sofie Isaksson, "Manipulating the Rural Landscape: Villagisation and Income Generation in Rwanda," JournalofAfrican Economies 22, no. 3 (June 1, 2013): 394-436, doi:10.1093/jae/ejsO38. 39 Daley, "Land and Social Change in a Tanzanian Village 1." Daley 383-385. 40 Indeed, Tanzanian village houses were sometimes set 30 meters apart from one another, a far more spacious arrangement than prevails in much of rural China at present. Isaksson, "Manipulating the Rural Landscape." 395. 41 Thiele, "The Tanzanian Villagisation Programme"; Scott, Seeing like a State. Thiele 253, Scott 235, 238, etc.

24 provision of services.42 Scott extends this argument, suggesting that the government sought simultaneously to negate traditional practices and to satisfy an aesthetic that emphasized order and neglected usefulness. While the Chinese case study presented here has been far more deferential to local conditions than the frenzied Tanzanian villagization, it has similarly critiqued traditional village design and campaigned to replace it with a more ordered, clean, and simple arrangement.

42 William A. Munro, "Building the Post-Colonial State: Villagization and Resource Management in Zimbabwe," Politics& Society 23, no. 1 (March 1, 1995): 107-40, doi:10.1177/0032329295023001005; Scott, Seeing like a State. Munro 108, Scott 224

25 4. Background on Old Spring Village

4.1. Methods This case study is based upon eleven days of interviews with over fifty villagers in

January 2014 in a Shandong village, which I label Old Spring Village. The village was

chosen by a local government official, although my initial project was unrelated to village

reconstruction. Interviews were conducted by the author with a fellow researcher and, in

many cases, with a student translator. Most interviews were with villagers, although I

spoke several times with various village leaders, the developer stationed in the village, and

town officials. After leaving the village, I interviewed a district planning official and one of

the architects in the group that designed the relocation homes. In selecting villagers to

interview, we sought a relatively balanced geographic and demographic sample but did not

follow a systematic procedure.

4.2. Geography Old Spring Village of Hill Break Town is located in a mountainous, rural portion of a

peripheral district (qu K) of a Shandong city. Its ten natural villages (ziran cun 0A~f)4

form five or six clusters falling along a three kilometer stretch of valley, divided down the

middle by a small stream. Paved roads encircle the east-west valley, although most traffic

traverses the northern road. The north road from the town transits another administrative

village on its seven kilometer route to Old Spring Village; just past Old Spring Village's

boundary lies a popular tourist site wrapped in protected forest land.

43 "Old Spring Village Rlft _ IE," 2012. The number of natural villages (communities beneath the level of an administrative village) proved a remarkably difficult question, with villagers' answers often varying and official paperwork inconsistent There may be fewer than ten natural villages.

26 4.3. Economy The tourist site underpins much of the economic success of the northern natural villages. Old Spring Village has over twenty restaurants (nongjiale ) although it appears that supply far outpaces demand, particularly in the wake of recent campaigns against the dining habits of officials; indeed, several restaurateurs close their restaurants during the off season and seek employment as migrant laborers. Nevertheless, proximity to a tourist site provides both entrepreneurial opportunities and a source of (often low- wage) employment.

The tourist site has also spurred dreams of commercial housing development.

Several years ago, a developer from another Shandong city rented several mu (0) of farmland from natural villages north of the river to build housing. It remains only partially built and vacant, as he failed to secure the necessary construction permits. The Village

Head has more recently begun construction on about a dozen luxury villas overlooking the village, although these are not yet occupied either. Indeed, despite the enthusiasm for constructing commercial housing, the village seems to have, as yet, no completed successful projects.

The attempts to build commercial housing have, however, impacted agriculture.

The village has historically grown corn and wheat along relatively flat fields in the valley and steeply terraced ones climbing the mountains to the south. More recently, villagers have begun growing walnuts, a lucrative crop once trees have matured. A small walnut cooperative is in operation, as is a much larger wild herb and chrysanthemum tea cooperative, organized by a successful seafood merchant who mainly resides in the district seat. The attempted housing developments have seized agricultural land held by several of

27 the northern natural villages in the valley; most affected villagers reported receiving annual rent pegged to the price of grain as compensation." Those still farming grain on the village's remaining 35 hectares 45 often expressed disgruntlement: their grain farming barely breaks even financially, and given their often limited land holdings, it primarily serves to feed themselves.46 Most villagers partook of limited animal husbandry, raising a clutch of chickens in their courtyard; some also raised anywhere from several to a hundred head of goats.

For most younger and middle-aged villagers, however, the primary source of income was from migrant labor. Most worked as cooks or construction workers in the city, earning twenty to thirty thousand RMB a year and returning home for several months a year to farm and relax. Others worked in the more successful restaurants or at construction sites within or abutting the village. The elderly relied on a combination of animal husbandry, farming, remittances, and rural pensions, which left some in poverty.

4.4. Demography As many of its 750 legal residents 47 spend much of their time working in urban areas, Old Spring Village's actual resident population is-typical of rural China- predominantly elderly. The grandparents care for the youngest children in the village, although starting in kindergarten they commute to the town seat. Come middle and high school, many reside in the town's boarding school or, through tests or bribes, enroll at the

44 They often complained about their loss of land, partly because it was lying unused and partly because of the (small) grain subsidy that they would have received had they been able to farm. It appears that there had been few, if any, takings of construction land in the recent past, although some houses had been moved in the early 2000s for construction of the southern road through the village. 4S "Old Spring Village I Th 4 A 4 *." 46 Those with walnut and other trees could earn substantial income, in some cases much as 8000 RMB a year. 47 "Old Spring Village I IjE";_T f"Old Spring Village I H i#t ," 2010.

28 school in the district seat. Among the few young villagers home for vacation, there was a desire to move out of the village when possible.48 The village still does have a respectable middle-aged population thanks to tourism entrepreneurship and employment, and their numbers are further bolstered at the Chinese New Year (when I conducted this research) and during the farming season by return migrants.

4.5. Intra-Village Migration Due to wide variation in the accessibility and resources of the natural villages, residents of the southernmost natural villages had begun migrating to areas around the north road even prior to the village reconstruction project. The north road is the center of the village's economic activity-restaurants and a handful of general stores are located there. The south road was built in the early 2000s, so migrants before that time moved north in part for better accessibility. Moreover, two of the southernmost natural villages are generally more run-down and have less access to water than their northern counterparts. 49 The result has been increasing population in the north of Old Spring Village, where children often move as families divide. Even households already settled in the south have relocated, leaving a significant number of abandoned houses:50 in one of the southern natural villages, one quarter of the homes was abandoned and a further quarter padlocked.

48 Interviews #103, 106 49 Interviews #65,114, etc.; "Old Spring Village . 50 See e.g., Interviews #104, 105

29 5. Project Plan

5.1. Overarching Plan The village reconstruction project seeks to complete this initially voluntary migration and incorporate several other natural villages as well. A total of five natural villages, mostly located between the north and south roads, are to be moved onto the site of a sixth, which has already been partially destroyed. The September 2010 plan calls for 27

rows of eight townhomes each of relocation housing (anzhifang 9' W N ), to be complemented by a kindergarten, a service center (shequ fuwu zhongxin *IMM~- ) and old age apartments (laonian gongyu ) So far, only four rows, for a total of

32 townhomes, have been completed.

The project was to be funded upfront by a developer, who after building the

relocation houses and demolishing the village's old housing stock, was to receive a hefty

subsidy from the village and the right to develop commercial housing on the site of one of the southern natural villages.5 2 A modicum of construction land would be conserved for the next decade's forecast population growth, estimated at 5% per year. The remaining 80

mu of construction land allocation5 3 would be sold on the land quota platform (pingtai 1

r), the revenue from which would precisely constitute the village's subsidy to the

developer.s4 Yet even these broad outlines were the subject of much contradictory

information among interviewees.

51 "Old Spring Village I1f JVAff 19 0 1* it#k" 52 Interviews #40,64 53 "Old Spring Village I B II." 54 1nterview #99

30 5.2. Planning Process The planning process began when higher levels of government suggested the project, and the Village Head (cunzhang #'-K-) decided to make it his own: trekking, he emphasized, from one government office to the next to apply, starting at the town level and working his way up to the city.55 The literature suggests that who initiates reconstruction projects may vary substantially across villages. Ahlers, whose work covers the broadest geographic areas but focuses on county officials, argued that, while some projects percolated up from the villages and others came from village leaders or higher-level officials, village public involvement mostly served to legitimate projects and avoid unpopular ones.56 While Bray points to a web of national laws directing rural planning, he found a remarkably bottom-up process, in which village officials prepared their plan and villagers were involved; he seems to have conducted extensive discussions with village leadership.57 Both Rosenberg and Liu, whose research was primarily conducted at higher levels of government (township and county),5 found relatively centralized planning shaping grassroots projects.59 Looney, whose research spanned from city officials to villagers, describes a Ganzhou (Jiangxi) model of village renovations that, at least at the outset, emphasized villager involvement through newly created peasant councils, albeit

ss Interviews #48,85 56 Ahlers, Rural Policy Implementation in ContemporaryChina. 132-134. 57 Bray, "Urban Planning Goes Rural." 60. 58 Rural Chinese government hierarchy, as noted earlier, runs from center down as follows: national government, provincial government, prefectural government, county government, township government, village government. s9 Rosenberg, "Urbanising the Rural"; Liu, "Upheaval in Chinese Villages: A Case Study of Rural Land Expropriation for 'Large Scale' Commercial Farming in Rural China, LDPI Working Paper #18." Rosenberg 70, Liu 9, etc.

31 heavily guided by higher-level cadres.60 Speaking mostly to villagers, I found significant village leadership involvement and minimal involvement by other villagers.

Decision making within the village was the subject of a great deal of obfuscation by the leaders, who sought to make it sound far more democratic than it was. The former village Party Secretary and former Village Head insisted that an exhaustive sequence of meetings were held during 2010 and 2011.61 The current Village Head (in office at the time of planning) reported that during summer 2011 the village had approved the plan, first through the twin village and Party committees (liangweihui M44), then by a meeting of the village representatives (cunmin daibiao dahui t't{ tk) at which participants signed their names.62 But I was unable to access the (supposedly public) record of this

meeting of village representatives. And, although a representative meeting is expected to include a representative of most households, households without representation on the liangweihui all said they had not been to any such meeting.63

The village leaders, however, did go from house to house to request signatures from

residents confirming their approval of the plan.64 Unprompted, a higher government

official observed that this legally satisfied the requirement for a village representative meeting, given the supposed difficulties of collecting representatives in a village with many migrants-although it definitely did not qualitatively fit his description of a consultative process. The Village Head claimed to have amassed 90% approval at that stage, with the

6 0 Looney, "The Rural Developmental State." 61 Interview #40 62 Interviews #48,85 63 Interviews #50, 52, 57, 63, 68, 70, 71, 78, etc. 64 1nterviews #57

32 remaining 10% eventually coming on board.65 Yet several villagers remarked that they had known nothing of the project until construction started or the developer visited their home.66 Clearly, while the village leaders intended to maintain firm control over decision- making, describing democratic process (but not substantive democratic give-and-take) was important to them. This fits with Ahlers' findings in her study of county-level implementation of the campaign to Build a New Socialist Countryside. Although a foundational tenet of the campaign, democratic process was the least fleshed out in implementation guidelines. Hence it was often limited to slogans or, in the better cases, used to smooth policy implementation.67

5.3. Financing and Subsidies Many of the project's biggest problems stemmed from inadequate financing. Old

Spring Village refused either to charge villagers for their new homes or to contribute any funds of its own, save for transferring the price of the construction land allocation sales to the developer. This left the project underfunded, so the village decided to give the developer one of the natural villages' construction land for a commercial development.

Still, the project was underfunded. One early developer faced such financial difficulties that by spring 2012 the town government stepped in to assist him in raising funds.68 He nevertheless failed, construction ground to a halt, and by August 2013 his rights had been sold to a new developer for 15 to 16 million RMB. 69 Whereas the preceding developer appears to have been from the area, the current one emphasized his firm's

65 Interyvjew #48 66 Interviews #50, 52, 63, etc. 67 Ahlers, Rural Policy Implementation in ContemporaryChina. 147. 68 "Old Spring Village it 69 Interview #100

33 ability to advance funds for the project (dianfu nengli MV14Jit), thanks to prior successful investments in urban areas.70 Indeed, today's developer was the only one that bid for the project, which he attributed to its high cost and the risk averseness of his competitors.

Today's developer expects hefty 20% profits in return for relatively high investment: by

May 2012 investment in the relocation houses alone had topped 14 million RMB, and today's developer forecasts a total investment (including for commercial housing) of 100 million RMB, plus another 300-400 million RMB for far-fetched plans to add a hotel and restaurant7

The village's (future) earnings from the sale of the construction land rights proved remarkably hard to pin down. Perhaps one village leader put it best when he remarked that the sum that would finally arrive-which was not due until after project completion- was unpredictable: some earnings would have been skimmed off by every level of government.72 The district planning office (qu guihuaju KMA10J3 ) estimated that the village would earn 300,000 RMB for each of the 80 mu of construction land allocation it would sell, figuring this 24 million RMB inadequate to fund the project.73 The Village

Head's estimates varied, starting at 6 million RMB 74 and rising to 50 million RMB (with 200 mu of saved land!). 75 A town document recorded the village's investment as of 2012 at 3 million RMB,76 but the current developer (who had arrived only in 2013), said he had

70 Interview #64 71 Interview #64 72 Interview #40 73 Interview #118 74 Interview #48 75 Interview #85. The Village Head also mentioned 300 mu of saved land in another interview. Interview #48. Neither number is plausible when compared with Google Earth satellite images. 76 "Old Spring Village it I I ."

34 received no government subsidy but planned to raise the subject when the relocation housing was complete.77

5.4. Natural Villages Another point on which confusion reigned was which natural villages were participating in the program. Those natural villages closest to the tourist site had been protected from demolition by higher levels of government, apparently to preserve their allegedly scenic appearance. 78 By the Village Head's account, all other natural villages were to move; this largerly agreed with the town project report.79 Yet the developer stated two of the larger, northern natural villages were not to move,8 0 and their residents in some cases seemed to agree, contending that they had successfully refused relocation.81 The only portion of a natural village for which moving was completely beyond doubt was that on already cleared land.

Given the confusion about who was eligible to move, it is unsurprising that there was, as well, some confusion about how many people were moving. It seems most likely that-assuming all six "eligible" natural villages ultimately moved-somewhere between

100 and 175 households would relocate.8 2 Some of these households, however, refused to move (see section 6.4).

77 Interview #64 78 Interviews #76,85 7 9 Interview #85, "Old Spring Village I4*A#0* _ f iE." 80 Interview #100 81 Interviews #72, 38 82 "Old Spring Village I 4 -9 _TJEZ." f Interviews #40, 85.

35 5.5. Construction Land As already described, the village reconstruction project was financially underpinned by the value of construction land-both as a tangible good that could be transferred to the developer and as a right that could be sold externally. The developer was to clear and reclaim for agriculture the land for which the construction rights were to be sold.8 3 The

Village Head explained that this land would be divided up evenly among the residents, 84 while some other members of the leadership expected it to go to those whose houses had been on the plot.85 One team leader 86 said the issue would be sorted out when there was land to divide.87 Villagers, however, were often deeply cynical: some figured that all the land would go to the developers, the village as an entity, or a corporate farmer.88

There was certainty among both villagers and their leaders that (at least) one natural village's construction land-that least suitable for agriculture-had been assigned to the developer for commercial real estate.

5.6. Commercial Development Plans The developer's plans were, however, on hold. His office in the village was dwarfed by the scale model that occupied the foyer. While saying that construction was due to start in 2014, he clarified that the plans were out of date and invalid, which left us befuddled until a district-level planner explained that the plans had been rejected: the proposed villas and hotel looked too much like villas and a hotel, and were not in keeping with the

83 Interviews #48,99 84 Interview #48 85 Interview #40 86 A team or small group leader (xiaozu /1, ) is the leader of what was formerly the production team (shengchan dui AR), which often corresponds to the boundaries of natural villages. The team leader serves as an intermediary between village leadership and villagers. 87 Interview #62 88 Interviews #63, 65, 72

36 atmosphere of a village.8 9 This seemed a significant hurdle, but no one in the village mentioned it.

The developer did outline his plans. He hoped to build a holiday village (dujiacun &

{@t), with 60 villas (bieshu iJR) that he expected the wealthy to purchase and convert to resort homes (gerenhuisuo A Confident that they would be able to pitch the village's location-both relative to the tourist site and more broadly-and its quiet atmosphere, he planned to forgo formal advertising and depend on word of mouth. The purchasers would not be able, however, to change their hukou and legally move to the village.90 He expected to sell the villas for 4,000 RMB per square meter, and to make further money by selling 4,000 square meters of excess relocation housing.91

5.7. Relocation Homes The plans for the relocation homes were decidedly more modest than the plans for the commercial development. In 2010, architects from the district seat had been brought in with instructions to design relatively uniform housing on a plot of land chosen by the village.92 They designed a neighborhood of nearly identical south-facing, three- to four- story townhomes in 27 blocks of eight units each, totaling about 30,000 square meters. At the center of the new neighborhood would be a kindergarten, old-age home, government service center, and plaza.93 Somehow, the old, worn blueprints that the newly arrived developer gave us showed only a portion of these plans, excluding several of the housing

89 Interview #118 90 Interview #48 91 Interview #64 92 Interview #119. Interestingly, the village claimed the better north-side land for itself, ensuring year-round sunlight, while the developer was given land on the south (north-facing) side of the valley. 93"Old Spring Village 1H # _W & A tA ."

37 blocks and all of the village services. 94 He expected to build 15 buildings.95 The details of the design are discussed more in section 8.1.

Construction began in 2011.96 As of January 2014, four buildings had been completed and were mostly occupied; a further seven were at various stages of construction, although no work had been done for over a year (see section 5.3).97 The developer expected to restart construction after the 2014 Chinese New Year, with completion sometime in 2014.98

94 1nterview #100. Neither the Village Head nor the town had copies of the plans, the former referring us to the developer and the latter referring us to the Village Head. The developer-who presumably would need the blueprints when it came time to tell the construction contractors he hires what to do-initially gave us significantly different old blueprints dating to 2009, before the village had decided to build the project. Interviews #64, 85, 99 95 Interview #64. 9 6 "Old Spring Village I t4 A4 0 1P 97 Interview #112 98 Interview #64

38 6. Relocation and Compensation

6.1. Villager Motivations Most villagers99 I interviewed did not want to move, mainly for reasons closely related to their personal physical wellbeing or aspects of the relocation housing itself. I treat both these concerns in section 7, and focus here on motivations not directly related to the design of the new settlement It is worth emphasizing that, since the project was still in progress, views were neither unsullied by the actual housing product itself-as they might have been before the project began-nor completely reflective-as they might be after it is completed. Rather, they incorporate the nervousness and excitement that can come with a prospective change of home and lifestyle. And, as Minzi Su discusses in introducing her fieldwork, there is a tendency among Chinese villagers to express a sense of victimhood for the Chinese peasantry collectively, sometimes even in hopes of extracting compensation. 100

For quite a few villagers, the government's request that they move was adequate motivation: with or without expressing reservations about relocating, they would remark that they would follow the will of the village leadership.1 01 For some in village government-notably not the Village Head and Party Secretary, whose villas were in natural villages not affected by the relocation project-there was a sense of obligation to set an example by moving. For at least one, who had just built his family a new home, this was a difficult decision; he also did not seem dedicated to relocating others.102 For two others, the decision was not so hard: they actually were businessmen in the district seat, so

99 About two-thirds of the villagers in a broad but not necessarily representative sample. 100 Minzi Su, China's Rural Development Policy: Exploring the "New Socialist Countryside" (Boulder, Colo: FirstForumPress, 2009). xii. 101 Interviews #87, 112, etc. 102 Interview #53

39 it was in fact their (not always eager) families they were moving, in one case into a gorgeously remodeled pair of townhomes. 103

For those most enthusiastic about moving, the prospect of a new, more modern house was a draw. Another motivation for moving was the spread out (fensan 3M() nature of the village. Just as this had motivated the leadership and the planners to propose the village reconstruction plan, it motivated villagers who felt they would benefit from the improved transportation access and proximity to neighbors. 104 Similarly, as neighbors agreed to move, villagers felt that the critical mass necessary to sustain a natural village was lost, and grudgingly agreed to join the exodus. 105

Beyond dissatisfaction with the new houses' design, perhaps the biggest impediment to moving was the financial and emotional investment villagers had made in their current housing. Seeking more space than had been available in their often one-room mud brick houses, many villagers had built relatively large, multi-room concrete and brick houses in the past decade, some after the village reconstruction project was decided. 106 For them, the significant sunk costs associated with a new house-several hundred thousand

RMB-made moving unappealing, particularly since reimbursement was not tied to the age or valuation of one's house. 107 Furthermore, most villagers with new houses had designed

103 Interviews #65,96 104 Interviews #87, 105, 112, etc. 105 Interviews #51, etc. 106Two villagers said that getting a building permit had become significantly more bureaucratic-one now had to obtain permission from the city-level government-and that the village was anyways threatening to destroy new construction, even if permitted. Interviews #103, 107. 107 Interviews #52, 71, 72, 73, 88, 106

40 them personally and many had played a role in building them; they felt their design far

superior, and seemed to have a strong personal connection to their homes. 108

This is not to say that those in old houses necessarily wanted to move, although their counterparts in newer houses often thought they did or ought to.109 Residents of older houses were generally poorer and more likely to cite increased utility costs as a disincentive to move (see section 7.3). For the many elderly and crippled villagers, the prospect of physically moving, let alone to a house with stairs, was unappealing (see section 7.1).110

There were, of course, financial incentives to move as well (and hence financial thresholds for moving) (see section 6.3).

6.2. Methods to Extract Signatures & Retribution If it's suitable,you must move; if it's not suitable,you still must move. - Villager

In a very tangible and yet very technical sense, the decision to move was voluntary, and was indeed the villager's. The village studiously collected signatures before relocating households, and even the most distraught household did not allege that it had not signed to move.1 12 Yet it was clear that many of the signatures were not freely given.

108 Interviews #50, 56, 112 109 Interviews #71, etc. 110 Interviews #49, 61, etc. 111 Interview #65 1 1 2 A small group leader and the developer did emphasize, however, that once 80% of villagers signed, the last 20% of villagers could be forced to move. Interviews #62, 64. New Shandong government guidelines specify that 95% of impacted villager must assent before a project can proceed. ib t #* W:4*AOJ AA 7 HA %1,, 2014, http://sdgb.shandong.gov.cn/art/2014/5/16/art_4563_2496.html.

41 The village required a battery of signatures from each household. First came

signatures to support the project (see section 5.2). Then came signatures to confirm the village's valuation of the household (primarily its area) and associated assets, such as trees.

Finally, the household was asked to sign a contract for moving, a copy of which it seems was generally left with the household. It seemed that households could sign the first two documents and still not be required to move.1 13

The developer arranged a duet with the village leadership to procure signatures.

First the liangweihui or village committee (cunweihui t'tk) 114 would visit villagers' homes to seek their approval. Then the developer would visit and ask the head of household to sign a contract One elderly woman emphasized that she was pursued for her signature, and that an "outsider" (waidi 4t) developer came and "forced" (qiangpo N

LO)115 her household to sign.116 Even in this case, money played a role, and the developer remarked that when villagers refused to sign, it was "a money question" (qian de wenti 1R

0J fil). However, he "avoids giving too much, and first sends the village to work on the matter" (buhuigel tamen taiduo, rang cunfixian zuogongzuo & Th4i3-k'$, ikt't9B{i

TEf).1 7

The "work" the village set about doing was widely referred to as sixiang gongzuo ()

tIi{), which approximately means pressure work but is literally ideological work. At its

113 Interviews #112, etc. 114 Some villagers reported their small group leader (xiaozuzhang 4-1 -K) visiting instead. Many simply referred to the brigade (dadui -kA), as the village is tellingly, but anachronistically, still known. 115 It is important to note that here "force" did not, so far as I know, involve any violence. 116 Interview #56 117 Interview #64

42 best, the ideological work consisted of endorsements of the superior quality of the relocation housing.11 8 In some cases, this seems to have been reasonably successful, convincing villagers that moving was indeed a good idea-although some have since come to view the new houses as decidedly inferior.119 The deputy Village Head estimated that about 80% of villagers agreed to move initially.1 20 Concurrent with the ideological work was the discussion of financial compensation (see next section).

But the ideological work also entailed thinly veiled threats. The Village Head explained that the village committee begins by remarking that relocating to more dense settlements is a national trend. Then the village committee discusses utilities: if a villager does not move and becomes geographically isolated, his water and electric costs will rise; if he moves, he will have access to gas and solar power.121 At least one household heard instead that its electricity would be turned off if it did not move, a tactic that has been used in at least one other village in the same district and that Liu observed in her case study.122

And in the more remote southernmost natural village, it had been made clear that the mechanized well would not be maintained, forcing those who wanted water to relocate.1 23

But threats about utilities were clearly not the most frightening aspect of a village government request. Villagers rely on the village government for a great many things, particularly land for household division and practical permission to rebuild their houses;

118 One villager, who happened to work for the town hospital, said the village had not even bothered with this step, simply presenting the plans and leaving the choice of moving entirely up to him. He chose not to move. Interview #110. 119 Interviews #74, 93, 106 120 Interview #96 121 Interview #85 122 Interview #90. Liu, "Upheaval in Chinese Villages: A Case Study of Rural Land Expropriation for 'Large Scale' Commercial Farming in Rural China, LDPI Working Paper #18." 14. 123 Interview #114

43 hence staying put would likely mean indefinite stasis in terms of housing.124 The village leadership also can muster other forms of retribution, since, as one villager put it, there will come a day when one needs their assistance.125 Thus the general attitude among many- although not all-was that they had little choice but to comply with the will of the leadership.

The various ways in which the village government used its power to "encourage" relocation raises questions about property rights in rural China. That Old Spring Village let the project rest upon the signatures of each household suggests an immense respect for the paperwork of property rights-or at least pressure from the bureaucracy. Indeed, there are simpler and more efficient ways to force relocation. Yet a property rights regime with real substance requires, essentially, that the government exercise self-restraint; 126 although most functional governments could arrange to cut off utilities to a troublesome household, doing so exerts disproportionate leverage in negotiations. On the other hand, property rights amount to little if their bearers choose not to exercise them. In this sense, responsibility falls with the villagers who, seeing that the village government supported relocation, immediately conceded that they would have to move; likewise, holdouts could face social pressure from neighbors who contended that refusing to move was hopeless. 127

Ahlers, indeed, finds that village leaders use the social pressure of the village community to

124 Interviews #68, 103 125 Interview #93 126 See, e.g., Lee J. Alston, Thrainn Eggertsson, and Douglass C. North, eds., EmpiricalStudies in Institutional Change, Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996). 131-134. 127 Interview #56. Liu finds similar group mentality in her study of large-scale farms' land rentals. Liu, "Upheaval in Chinese Villages: A Case Study of Rural Land Expropriation for 'Large Scale' Commercial Farming in Rural China, LDPI Working Paper #18."

44 bring reluctant households into line.128 In this sense, as Yiqiang Liu suggests in the context

of China, and as economists have acknowledged more broadly, property rights, no matter

how well protected, only exist if local culture incorporates them.1 29 In short, it seems the

bureaucracy of property rights has made it to Old Spring Village, but the ideology of

property rights has not. Hence the planned reforms to allow villagers to transfer their

holdings in rural construction land would have probably had negligible impact; indeed, no

one seemed to doubt that the villagers had the property rights to their houses.1 30

Another question raised by the village leadership's use of utilities to threaten

villagers is the legitimate role of the administrative village as a protector of collective

interests. If the village government can offer, for free, new housing to all its residents, and

thereby minimize the cost of various public services while providing additional public

services in the new area, does it have an obligation to maintain a well in a sparsely

populated natural village if some villagers elect not to relocate? If the village government

does not have such an obligation, what then becomes of the property rights of that natural

village's households? Indeed, according to the architectural plans, the poor state of the

water supply and electric grid was in the first place a major motivation for the relocation

project.131

2 8 1 Ahlers, Rural Policy Implementation in ContemporaryChina. 138. 29 1 Armen Albert Aichian, Economic Forces at Work (Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1977); Alston, Eggertsson, and North, EmpiricalStudies in InstitutionalChange. Alchian 129-130; Alston et al. 7-8. 4 e 3 ) t 4 I 4t t k130M J XJ *-i, 2013, http://news.xinhuanetcom/politics/2013- f 11/15/c_118164235.htm. Item 11. 131 "Old Spring Village I #.

45 6.3. Compensation A popular school of thought holds that villager discontentment about moving is a question of money, and indeed that villagers are simply discontent because compensation is inadequate. Alternatively, fairly compensated villagers or ones happy to move may opportunistically complain in hopes of increased compensation. I argue otherwise; villagers often do not want to move because they do not like the destination or they simply prefer staying put: urban-style housing strikes them as inappropriate, either for long-term financial reasons or because they identify as peasants. Nevertheless, some villagers seemed to consider compensation central to their attitudes about moving. And I will not argue that enough money cannot resolve almost anyone's qualms about moving, a point on which the current developer was quite confident. Indeed, the developer has been generous with promises of monetary compensation-but some of those promises have not been honored, which has undermined their effectiveness at convincing additional households to move.

The primary compensation was, however, in-kind: as many townhomes as necessary to provide the same number of square meters as in the villager's old house.

Hence families often received two adjacent townhomes. However, townhomes came in fixed numbers of square meters, and so villagers whose old housing would have entitled them to a fractional townhome could top-up or shrink their compensation by buying or selling extra floor space at about 2200 RMB per square meter.132 Yet this form of in-kind reimbursement caused some complaints. Some with newer houses maintained that they

132 Interviews #48, 78

46 should be reimbursed for the added value of their new construction,133 although the Village

Head pointed out that the newer houses tended to be significantly larger than the old ones.134 Indeed, two residents of smaller houses said that, while they were willing to move, they were not willing to pay for the added square meters needed to exchange with the smallest of the new townhomes.135 Those in smaller homes are often the poorest, and they simply cannot afford the cost.1 3 6 (Putting a market value on a rural house, which cannot legally be sold, could have proved a challenge.) Considering this in-kind compensation alone, Old Spring Village's compensation is far more generous than in Rosenberg and Liu's case studies and in Ahlers' research sites in Qingyuan, Zhejiang, where villagers are often expected to buy their new houses, or in Looney's, where villagers are expected to build their own house (albeit with some government support). Bray found an exchange system similar to that in Old Spring Village,137 as did my exploratory fieldwork on the outskirts of

Fuzhou.138

Additionally, Old Spring villagers receive housing or rent subsidies to cover their accommodation for the time between when their old house is destroyed and the new building is ready.1 39 Moreover, villagers are to be paid 200 RMB for each day the new

133 Interviews #97, 112 134 Interview #85 135 Interview #104 136 Interview #116 137 Rosenberg, "Urbanising the Rural"; Bray, "Urban Planning Goes Rural"; Liu, "Upheaval in Chinese Villages: A Case Study of Rural Land Expropriation for 'Large Scale' Commercial Farming in Rural China, LDPI Working Paper #18"; Ahlers, Rural Policy Implementation in Contemporary China. Rosenberg 66, Bray 60, Liu 16, Ahlers 70. 13 8 Interview #121 139 Interviews #57, 64, 65, 97

47 housing is late past an agreed upon deadline; needless to say, with construction halted, it was already late at the time of research. 140

Further compensation was promised for assessed improvements to household construction land other than the house, such as trees, for which most villagers claimed to have been offered small sums. The compensation for trees was vastly lower than what villagers thought appropriate, and indeed lower than the value of their produce as reported even by satisfied villagers.141

The largest financial component of the compensation packages was a negotiated payment, sometimes of several tens of thousands of RMB. Two families reported a promise of 40,000 RMB in compensation, and another family 100,000 RMB, which was easily several years' salary for them.1 42 However, these offers were made to households with newly rebuilt homes, which may have cost more to build.

Yet promises of compensation packages only are as valuable as they are trusted.

The family promised 100,000 RMB has received less than that, but is waiting until they can gather other villagers and together confront the previous developer about his debts.1 43

Likewise, some told us that their rent subsidies had not been delivered.144 As a result, even tempting compensation deals might be turned down. One villager, offered a compensation package that rose in value from 10,000 RMB to 100,000 RMB during negotiations, still refused it because he did not believe the developer would actually pay him that much.145

140 Interviews #50, 56,57 141 Interviews #48, 51, 85, 112 142 Interviews #56, 57, 62, 106 143 Interview #56 144 Interview #87 145 Interview #68

48 6.4. Success Rate There was contention about how successful the village had been at attaining commitments to move. The deputy Village Head estimated that 80% of the village had agreed to move at first; the developer said 95% had agreed, expressing confidence that everyone eventually would.146 The Village Head estimated that over 10 households had refused to move, but then his estimate fell to four to eight.147 We spoke to at least ten households that told us they had refused to move (and many more who said they did not want to).

Resistance to relocation has been significant in some places. In two of the northern natural villages, several households told us that, while the village had initially sought to relocate them, it had since either given up or decided to try first to relocate villagers in the southern natural villages.148

Amidst all this, one household-apparently the Village Head's younger brother's- actively refused to move. A perfectly nice looking, normal, seven-year old house, his sits in the middle of the unfinished relocation housing, edging onto plots that would have had three buildings. His wife gave a standard if unusually nervous rendition of the reasons not to move: the new houses were "not suitable" (bu heli F-A ) for a variety of design reasons.

Yet the deputy Village Head made clear they simply wanted more money-and, he wanted to clarify, as relatives of the Village Head it would not be acceptable to pay them too much:

14 Interviews #64,96 147 Interview #85 148 Interviews #72,94, etc.

49 while they might receive money in the end, it won't be too much. But he bemoaned the tendency of other villagers to blow the matter out of proportion.1 49

149 Interview #96

50 7. Relocation Housing: Design & Attitudes

"The look of things and the way they work are inextricably bound together, and in no

place more so than cities. [...] It is futile to plan a city's appearance,or speculate on how to

endow it with a pleasing appearanceof order, without knowing what sorts of innate,

functioning order it has. To seek for the look of things as a primary purpose or as the main

drama is apt to make nothing but trouble."

-JaneJacobs'50

Jacobs' admonitions on the importance of proper design in cities holds true in rebuilt villages. But the designers of the new Old Spring village had emphasized appearance and policy goals over villager livelihoods and preferences. Unsurprisingly, then, design of the relocation housing was a subject of widespread criticism among Old

Spring's villagers, serving for many as a reason not to move. For some, the problems were technical, while for others the whole concept of more urban, dense housing was flawed.

Many of the concerns were rooted in the economics of rural life, others in the lifestyles to which villagers were accustomed. Much of the concern came from those who identified themselves as farmers.

7.1. Stairs, Cripples, & the Elderly Every relocation unit was three to four stories tall, with a stairwell in the middle. In a village disproportionately populated by the elderly and crippled-that is, those who can

no longer work as migrant laborers-this was poorly received. For them, going up stairs

150 Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Vintage Books ed (New York: Vintage Books, 1992). 14-15.

51 was simply not possible. 151 At least one elderly grandmother who had moved found herself

isolated in the (level-entry) basement.15 2 Even one of the younger residents' main complaints about the new houses was that living on the third floor was inconvenient.15 3

The failure to provide adequate housing for the elderly seems a major planning oversight. The deputy Village Head protested that there were plans for an old age home for those whose children were not in town or those who did not want to live with their children.15 4 There is some question whether elderly villagers, accustomed to living with extended family, would happily separate from them to live in an old age home. Supposing they would, the architect's plans showed only 24 units. And while each unit was on one floor, they were all one to three flights of stairs above ground level.155 But as the building has not been built, it is as yet a moot matter.

7.2. Agriculture

Although per capita land holdings in Old Spring Village are relatively low, many villagers continue to farm and consider themselves farmers or peasants (nongmin PJM).

Hence, as Ong and Rosenberg also identify in their research, the prospect of losing their traditional courtyard (yuanzi PA-T) was particularly troubling.15 6 In Old Spring Village, traditional homes are gated, walled compounds, with an often paved central yard that can be used for parking vehicles, storing agricultural supplies or surplus, stockpiling firewood, and raising animals (generally chickens or goats). The relocation housing provided, as a

1s1 Interviews #49, (52,) 61, 82, 109 152 Interview #65 153 Interview #106. However, one teenager who had not moved did cite this as an attraction. Interview #91. 154 Interview #96 15S "Old Spring Village IW -_c I &A A iCt I t. 156 Ong, "State-Led Urbanization in China"; Rosenberg, "Urbanising the Rural." Ong 169-170; Rosenberg 67.

52 substitute, an in-unit garage (cheku 4-W) and an open-air, unguarded communal storage area for agricultural machines.15 7 This constituted a significant loss of space, aggravated by the insecurity of the communal open-air storage. Many villagers thus complained that they would have nowhere to put their farming instruments.158 And they would also no longer be able to plant income-generating trees on their house plots.15 9

Importantly, considering the loss of space for animals and for trees, the construction land previously occupied by houses clearly also served as agricultural land, albeit highly inefficiently, a phenomenon Bray also observes.1 60 Untying the construction rights from this land and selling them to an urban area thus constitutes a net loss of de facto agricultural land.

Another concern was where to put one's animals. Those with a sizable flock seemed unconcerned: they expected to receive land, albeit not as near to their residences as were their courtyards.161 But those who raised a mere handful of chickens were more troubled: it was more important to them that their animals be near their houses.1 62 This problem had not, however, been too acute for those who had already moved: they simply put their chickens in cramped cages along the new village's alleys-as did the villagers in Liu's case study.1 63

157 Interview #119. One of the architects also said he had designed three rooms for agricultural tools, but they had not yet been built. 158 Interview #(70,) 104, 106, 110, etc. Even one of the village leaders remarked that the new homes were not so convenient for those with agricultural tools. Interview #96. 159 Interview #103 160 Bray, "Urban Planning Goes Rural." 61. 161 Interviews #92, 115 162 Interviews #107, etc. 163 Liu, "Upheaval in Chinese Villages: A Case Study of Rural Land Expropriation for 'Large Scale' Commercial Farming in Rural China, LDPI Working Paper #18." 15.

53 Some of the most contentious aspects of the relocation housing were the product of

conscious design and in keeping with national policy. As one villager put it, the rocation

houses "do not suit the countryside" (bu shihe nongcun 4%&A f#).164 But this was

precisely the goal of one of the architects, who explained that his design did not

accommodate farm animals since they were trying to turn the villagers into urbanites

(chengshijumin Wfig-JX).165 This is in keeping with some national policies, which call for

separating animals from living quarters. 166

One concern sometimes raised about this type of project is the increased distances

farmers must travel to reach their fields. While a couple of villagers expressed annoyance at this,1 67 few raised the subject and most seemed not to mind; they planned to walk, bike,

or motorbike to their fields, which would be at most ten minutes away.168

7.3. Utilities The plans for the relocation housing pitch their improved utilities as a major draw: not only will they have electricity and tap water, but they also will have natural gas, waste water treatment, and a variety of communications services.1 69 For villagers, the advent of these utilities is a mixed bag. On the one hand, some celebrated the improved convenience.1 70 On the other, many bemoaned higher costs, while expressing trepidation at the prospect of using modern devices and parting with traditional sources of energy.

164 Interview #107 165 Interview #119 166 2008, http://www.mohurd.gov.cn/zcfg/jsbwj_0/jsbwjczghyjs/200808/t20080826176666.html. Section 2.3. 167 Interviews #51, 116 168 Interviews #40, 56, 115 169 "Old SpringVillage9 170 E.g., Interview #69

54 In their old homes, many villagers had electricity but used firewood (or if fortunate, coal) for heating1 7' and cooking. The transition to the relocation homes was associated with using electricity or gas for heating and cooking, both significantly more costly than free firewood collected within the village.172 Electric appliances also were intimidating to some; others were loath to leave their old, more traditional kitchens.1 73 But while electric bills had risen for those who relocated-in one case more than doubling1 74-many had simply continued to use firewood. Indeed, firewood was stacked all along the alleys behind the relocation housing. And the new units had not come with heating already installed

(although some had installed it themselves), so wood furnaces were not unusual, again, just as in Liu's case study.175

As discussed above, the prospect of economically providing tap water had been a motivation for the relocation project. While some villagers were pleased, those accustomed to spring water were annoyed that they would now have to pay for water, and some continued to collect well water.1 76

7.4. Room Size & Quality On a very pedestrian level, villagers often complained that the (legitimately cramped) rooms in the new homes were small compared to the cavernous rooms of their

171 Homes were in most cases barely heated even on quite cold winter days. 172 Interviews #51, 61, 82, 96, 103, 106, 109, 111. National policy calls for reduced firewood use, presumably for environmental purposes. " W K _q IF f 4 i &A tA + .7 M M 1," March 16, 2011, http://www.gov.cn/20111h/contentl825838.htm. Section 7.2. 173 Interviews #82, 116, etc. 174 Interviews #65, 66 175 Interviews #51, 56, 65, 69. The novelty of electricity and dense living had raised concerns for a couple of villagers that the new homes would turn out to be a safety hazard. E.g., Interview #68. Liu, "Upheaval in Chinese Villages: A Case Study of Rural Land Expropriation for 'Large Scale' Commercial Farming in Rural China, LDPI Working Paper #18." 15. 176 Interviews #51, 56, 57, 61, 65

55 old houses. 177 One of the architects attributed it partly to structural considerations and

partly to their "sense of design" (shejisiwei %itpV%),178while their plans commended the

rooms as "on an appropriate scale" (heshi de chidu M&)Rj ).179

Some villagers, both residents of the relocation housing and those who had not yet

moved, complained of shoddy construction. Others alleged that while the roadside houses

were on a solid foundation, those closer to the river valley were not. However, one

otherwise disgruntled construction worker resident in the new houses conceded that they

were well enough built (hai xing ffj).180

7.5. Design Process While some of the least popular design aspects reflected the social engineering

objectives of the architect and national policy, it was also clear that the design process had

included minimal villager involvement. Despite much emphasis in the architect's plans on

"respecting villager's opinions" (zunzhong nongmin yiyuan #1MJ ),181 no one in the

village seemed to have been involved in designing the homes. The Village Head seemed to

consider design to be of minimal import, and his superiors up to the district level were

befuddled that we were asking questions about architecture. The architect claimed to have

delivered the plans to the village representatives' meeting and received written feedback,

but could not be bothered to find it to share with us. 18 2

177 Interviews #56, 57, 116 178 Interview #119 179 "Old Spring Village lH 1 i $ k ." 180 Interview #56 181 "Old Spring Village 1t If i Ak* * Aitt k." 182 Interview #119

56 The design itself appeared to have been prepared, relatively autonomously and without much thought or creativity, by an architecture firm in the district seat. The firm had been, however, constrained by finances183 and the village government's desire for only one type of house-which resulted in some families receiving multiple units as compensation rather than a single larger unit.184 The district Planning Bureau had then approved the plans.185

183 Interview #119 184 Interview #119 185 Interview #118

57 8. Urbanization & Economic Ramifications

8.1. Urban Layout As discussed above, the architects sought to design an urban neighborhood. They proposed a nearly grid-lined development almost entirely covered in pavement; this was a dramatic change from several of the tree-bedecked older natural villages, which the architects saw as "a disorderly mess caused by topography and a lack of planning" (shou dixing dimaoyingxiang he queshao guihua, cunzhuangjianshe buju sanluan f )J'A9JJ, #Eil9i-ffM9 l).186 Indeed, the architects feared this was not only bad land use but also impacted the orderliness of the tourist area. So when asked the goals of his design, one of the architects explained that he had sought a less scattered village that would be more visually attractive for tourists.187

The resulting relocation homes were much more car-oriented than the existing village, where houses are often connected by winding footpaths and some are not even accessible by motor vehicle. In the new village, concrete roads wrap around all the buildings, and while pedestrians and cars share space, they do so on terrain designed for the latter. As a result, by far the most visually striking aspect of the new village is its emphasis on concrete surfaces. For the few villagers who have cars, the concrete roads are no doubt a vast improvement, but they are at best far-sighted for the majority.

The area chosen for the relocation houses is a steep south-facing hill, allowing all houses sunlight year round-but at the expense of a vertically disjointed four-tier community. Houses lower on the hill are separated by a wall from houses one tier higher,

186 "Old Spring Village I1 4I d 1it k." 187 Interview #119

58 so pedestrian access between adjacent tiers of homes requires circuitous travel.

Automobile access is worse, with the entire neighborhood sharing only one access point to the north road.

8.2. Stores In keeping with urban habits of zoning, the architect had designed one building for stores and expected the other buildings to remain residential.1 88 The building for stores has not been built yet, but three units facing on the north road have been turned into two stores, which were popular gathering places for locals and a source of prepared food, such as mantou and jianbing.189 That these road-front units (in a village where many road-front homes are restaurants) were never intended to be stores was clear: they were cramped and poorly suited to storing, let alone displaying, merchandise.

Yet there was money to be made. So the Village Head's nephew had turned the first floor of his two units of relocation housing into a dry goods and prepared food store.190 A decommissioned soldier from out of town, who had rented one unit from the Village Head's other nephew for 1000 RMB per month, opened a fresh vegetable and meat store.191

Besides providing a modicum of employment-the vegetable and meat store had hired two villagers-they were lucrative for the proprietors of the units. Notwithstanding the prominent role of the Village Head's nephews, one of the nephews said that lots had been drawn and those who drew well were given first choice of where to move.1 92

188 Interview #119 189 Interviews #65, 97 190 Interview #57 191 Interview #69 192 Interview #57 vs. Interview #65

59 8.3. Social Urbanization is not simply physical relocation to a more densely populated area; it provides the context for changing modes of social interaction. Particularly in a uniform, planned community such as the relocation homes, the built environment mediates social interactions. With only 32 units built, it is in many ways premature to ask about the social impacts of this urbanization project, yet some outcomes are already quite visible. Whereas in the older natural villages there is almost no activity on the walkways and streets, there are almost always people along the alleys of the relocation houses. Some of this traffic is tending to household chores that would formerly have been done within the courtyard, such as handling chickens or firewood. Yet some of what has been taken from the courtyard to the street has changed formerly insular activities, such as grandmothers caring for their grandchildren, into communal ones. This is facilitated by the fact that, so far, natural villages have not been mixed-nor are new physical barriers purposely built, as they were in Bray's case study.193 It will be interesting to observe the evolution of these interactions as multiple natural villages, formerly spread out, move together.

The closest analogue to these denser villages is probably the residential Chinese work unit, or danwei (*{), of the socialist era. While generally ensconced in a far larger city, work units were relatively self-contained communities, with apartments and basic services (a canteen, a kindergarten, etc.) provided within their walled compounds; children could inherit their parents' jobs at the danwei. In fact, they were probably more insular than today's rural China, where villagers emigrate in search of work. Because danwei

193 Bray, "Urban Planning Goes Rural." 60. While Liu also found increased social activity, it was in the context of widespread malaise among villagers stripped of their farmland.

60 residents lived and worked together-and were crowded into quite limited space-these urban settlements were typified by an unusually high degree of community: residents knew one another and could gossip incessantly.194 If this is a good model for a densified village, then it is at odds with one of urban sociology's main findings: urbanization's tendency to grant anonymity.1 95

The relocation homes have also prompted some households to divide earlier and more often, beginning what could amount to a momentous change in family relations. In courtyard homes, many consider it ideal for several generations to live together, and siblings or children divide away from the household relatively late. In the relocation homes, however, large families have incentives to decide on household division when they move in.

Households that received more than one unit of relocation housing had to choose whether to merge the units or leave the wall separating them. If they merge the units, they have financially, at least, committed to not dividing. So two families told us that they had left the barrier intact but might tear it down if they had a good relationship with their future daughter-in-law.196 In the short term, this makes for great inconvenience as family members go outdoors to access half their house. But in the long run, it allows sons to marry with less concern about whether their parents will get along well with their spouse-and it may splinter what had been a strong tradition of extended families. Indeed, as Bray notes, if this practicebecomes widespread, it will have significant consequences for

194 Gail Henderson, The Chinese Hospital: A Socialist Work Unit (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984); Lu, Remaking Chinese Urban Form. Henderson 40-45. Lu 68. 195 e.g., Louis Wirth, "Urbanism as a Way of Life," American JournalofSociology 44, no. 1 (July 1, 1938): 1-24. 16 196 Interviews #97, 106

61 elder care and hence social insurance, as the earlier division of households will mean that the elderly must maintain independent lives.197

8.4. Inequality The project has a significant redistributive component, but also risks ossifying existing inequalities and creating financial burdens for the poorest villagers. By replacing each square meter of old housing, no matter its quality, with a square meter of relocation housing of unrelated and approximately uniform quality, the project constitutes an enormous subsidy to those with less investment in their old homes, mostly the poor. But on the other hand, by giving each household the same number of square meters it previously had, the compensation system benefits the wealthy, who often had larger homes: after moving, it will be all but impossible to expand one's house. Moreover, those who had built restaurant-homes along the north road often possessed abandoned houses in their former natural villages, so would be receiving a relocation home to complement their restaurant-home. 198

From the national perspective, increased provision of utilities and other public services in rural areas is equalizing, reducing the huge rural-urban gap in government investment and provision. But this can have perverse effects on the local level. For rich households, it allows a more luxurious lifestyle. But for poorer ones, it reduces access to productive assets (trees and livestock), while increasing costs (utility bills), a potentially disastrous combination. Unsurprisingly, then, Old Spring villagers' attitudes towards the project divided frequently along economic lines. Similarly, where peasants have not only

197 Bray, "Urban Planning Goes Rural." 61. 198 Interviews #63, 64

62 been moved to apartment buildings but have also lost their land, Ong observes more widespread expense increases and income reductions.199

Hence the nascent rural social insurance schemes will likely have to step in. The plan for the relocation homes acknowledges this, calling for free or discounted gas for the poor and the establishment of a "strong, seamless social insurance system to allow villagers to fully enjoy [...] the village reconstruction program's rich achievements, and to live a happy life not inferior to that of an urbanite."200 Yet while local medical insurance seems relatively effective for those fortunate enough to have diseases designated for high reimbursement, the two main cash transfer programs seemed modest: old age pensions could not single-handedly support the elderly, and the minimum livelihood guarantee

(dibao {.f*) was a source of disaffection among poor villagers who felt the leadership distributed benefits based upon family demographics and personal favors, not (as per policy) purely by need. Moreover, these programs are administered at the district level, so village-level fixes are unlikely.

On the other hand, stripping rural households of their self-sufficiency has the potential to grow the local economy by forcing poorer villagers to live less economically isolated lives and consume more, although the old age or physical incapacity of many erstwhile self-sufficient villagers seems to limit this potential for growth. Furthermore, the project largely arrests the village's internal real estate market, potentially redirecting villager earnings from housing construction to other more immediate forms of

199 Ong, "State-Led Urbanization in China." 200 "Old Spring Village I#-c -1goX9Wktk *." In Chinese: "A A'M l:t , P q A AUV At #_AAI**I 91991*- I-/ Jt fL -t_ *#KA-) -

63 consumption. 201 (This is in stark contrast to the Ganzhou model of village renovation described by Looney, which encourages villagers to spend their own money, combined with loans and a government subsidy, to invest in new housing.202) Still, while consumption increases may occur, and two new stores have opened, the town seat would seem a more appealing location for most non-agricultural economic activities, as it is quite near and serves a much larger market. Indeed, provincial policy calls for concentrating rural jobs in towns (and residences in villages). 203 Large agglomeration economies likewise seem far-fetched given the emigration of much of the village's workforce, although some are possible. But most likely seems continued out migration of villagers in search of specialization in truly urban areas.

Returning to Jacobs' commentary, the new housing's urban form fails to make the village urban. The sociologist Louis Wirth aptly defines a city as "a relatively large, dense, and permanent settlement of socially heterogeneous individuals." 204 While village reconstruction increases the village's density, its population remains relatively small and homogeneous; the social and economic changes that tend to follow urbanism are absent. In short, urbanization is more than the construction of a high density built environment.

201 Since a sizeable fraction of the village's local employment comes from construction, this could have deleterious impacts on the village's internal economy. 202 Looney, "The Rural Developmental State." 203 A # kfl J k. Section 3.4. 2 04 Wirth, "Urbanism as a Way of Life." 8.

64 9. Politics

9.1. Politicization of the Project The Village Head insisted that the villagers were very happy with the project,205 and the town wrote that the "destruction work had the support of the majority of the masses"

(chaiqiangongzuodedao daduoshu qunzhongde zhichi i kk J Eq).206

But as we have seen, villager attitudes were a good deal more critical. Some felt fooled

(shangdang - ) by the village's insistence that the new homes would be better.207 Others suspected the village leaders of profiting from the project, or simply distrusted the developer. 208 One elderly woman even reached for Cultural Revolution vocabulary, alleging that the purpose of the project was to "destroy the Four Olds" (qu sijiu -LhJ IfI). 2 09

Another man, sharing many villagers' cynical mindset, lamented that ruralites are always the losers, despite loyally following policy. 210 Clearly, objections to the village reconstruction project extended beyond personal dissatisfaction into the arena of politics.

Indeed, villagers associated the project with the village leadership and the Village Head personally.211

9.2. Electoral Implications Section 6.2 shows clearly that villagers often chose not to resist the project outright for fear of retribution. Villagers also did not see much use for the village election in resolving the matter. To some extent the village election was undermined by the Village

205 Interview #48 206 "Old Spring Village II:4&J B I I." 207 Interviews #56, etc. 208 Interviews #51, 52, 68, 107, etc. 209 Interview #65 210 Interview #71 211 Interviews #103, 106, etc.

65 Head's widely discussed plans to seek the more powerful and upwardly mobile position of village Party Secretary.212 He and the sitting Party Secretary were rumored to be on poor terms, and the incumbent had apparently reached the retirement age. Villagers eagerly if sometimes nervously conveyed rumors of the Party Secretary's corruption and ostentation; 213 the rumors were so uniform (including in their errors, which were often unfavorable comparisons with the Village Head) that I was left to suspect a concerted propaganda campaign.

By comparison, attitudes toward the Village Head were mixed. As with the rest of the village leadership, he was a successful businessman-not an ordinary villager. Yet unlike his colleagues, his business interests were primarily in the village, and even among some of his competitors in the restaurant industry, he was respected for his success. 214

(Others accused him of abusing his position or being a cheat.) Many thought he was hard working and had done good for the village, and between his restaurant and his construction projects, he employed a handful of villagers. So while some of these dependents (including relatives) could be among the most biting critics of the village relocation project, and while they freely acknowledged the Village Head's role in it, they argued forcefully that he was a good man.215 Others liked the project-including some participants as well as residents of the several natural villages that were exempt from relocation, who sometimes wished they could participate.

212 Interviews #97, etc. 213 Interviews #50, 97, 102 214 Interviews #88, etc. 215 Interviews #97, etc.

66 Still, the Village Head had many detractors, including a few who suspected every village's leadership was corrupt.216 While most of his critics could not impact the internal

Party election for Party Secretary, they could vote in the election for the next Village Head, for which the sitting Village Head was widely expected to nominate a successor.

Some said they would vote for someone other than the Village Head's chosen candidate. But most said they would vote for the Village Head's choice. One or two did not trust the anonymity of ballots, 217 although others swore their votes were secret.218 There was no question, however, that the candidate would campaign. 219 (In the past, he would have visited homes in the evening and offered small gifts and a little cash. Votes, it seemed, were remarkably cheap, and it was apparently bad form to politely take gifts but vote for another candidate. There was some suspicion that such vote buying might have been effectively forbidden since the last village election or rendered unnecessary by the Village

Head's increased power as a patron.220)

For those hostile to voting for the Village Head's nominee, finding a candidate worthy of a vote was a problem.221 Without an opponent who could plausibly win, and none was suggested to us, decreasing the winning candidate's vote total seemed to pointlessly risk village-wide retribution. 222 Moreover, the most disgruntled villagers tended to be older, a group that seemed more intimidated by the village leadership.

(Incidentally, the elderly would be casting proxy ballots for their out-of-town relatives.)

216 Interviews #(62,) 65, 68, 90, 102, etc. 217 Interview #102 218 Interviews #103, 106 219 Interview #68, 103, 106 220 One villager pointed out that a candidate who received fewer votes than he expected would notice, and might use his office or his connections to retaliate against the entire village. 221 Interview #106 222 Interview #106

67 As is well established, village elections give the population little leverage if they lack effective challengers. 223 The Village Head's apparently sincere support base provided a further buffer of protection for the leadership, even if it may have been a classic case of dissociating a candidate from his policies. One member of the leadership, however, suggested a simpler explanation: he had no electoral fears since the villagers are all selfish and do not care about the "general situation" (daju -k)93).

While villagers did not speak to us of the election as a way to censure the village leadership, two did point to a more traditional route: petitioning higher levels of government. 224 But here they returned to their original problem: they would be identifiable and hence, they feared, in the words of one older woman, that the leaders would "make [them] wear small shoes" (gei wo chuan xiaoxie eag/JNU).22s Others considered even petitioning pointless because of the village leadership's connections with higher officials and their survival of previous critiques. 226

In sum, villagers felt that any means they could use to resist or criticize the village relocation project were risky, as the village leadership would find them out. In an environment where the village leadership could arrange painful retribution and villagers cannot easily change their legal place of residence, compliance seemed safer. Yet while this in part reflects the poor odds and high costs of resistance, it also places an upper bound on the villagers' discontent; indeed, many villagers were happy with the incumbent leadership.

223 See, e.g., Richard Levy, "Village Elections, Transparency, and Anticorruption: Henan and Guangdong Provinces," in Grassroots PoliticalReform in Contemporary China, ed. Elizabeth Perry and Merle Goldman, Harvard Contemporary China Series 14 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007), 20-47. 27-28. 224 Interview #93, 103 225 Interview #93 226 Interviews #68, 76, 102

68 10. Conclusion

Overall, I found Old Spring Village's reconstruction project to be poorly defined, with village leaders, villagers, and the current developer extremely confused about relatively basic matters, such as which areas were included. Perhaps relatedly, those with influence over the project were by and large not invested in its details-particularly its design-which seemed among the driving complaints of the villagers themselves. Indeed, studied ignorance of the villagers' displeasure was the norm. A notable exception was the district Planning Bureau, which seemed agitated by the poor treatment of villagers under village reconstruction programs. Yet here extraordinary naivet6 was on display: the planner expressed surprise that for-profit developers have been trying to make money rather than working in the best interests of villagers. 227

As the planner noted, financing was a fundamental issue. The structure of the project-providing land as well as subsidies to the developer-and presumably many of the problems surrounding compensation were rooted in a shortage of cash. It is simply difficult to relocate people and keep them happy without adequate money. On the other hand, Old Spring Village's compensation was, it seems, comparatively generous.

Relocation, meanwhile, raises complicated questions of property rights. The project as a whole clearly undermined villagers' rights to their housing plots. While the formality of collecting signatures dignifies property rights, and suggests concern on the part of higher levels of government about potential excesses on the local level, signatures can be wrangled from villagers who do not actually want to move. Hence, generally, it is villagers,

227 Interview #118

69 in and out of government, who decide if property rights are substantive, both through intimidation by the leadership and cooperation by the rest. On the one hand, the villagers' choice not to resist suggests that their disgruntlement with the project is not extreme. On the other, the ability of the village leadership to tamp down resistance-be it a refusal to sign away one's house, a wayward vote, or a petition to above-reflects on the significant retaliatory powers at its disposal. Indeed, it is hard to imagine functioning property rights, let alone village democracy, if the village leadership is to retain such personal power and the wherewithal to wield it arbitrarily. There is no reason to believe that tweaking rural property rights will change this power relationship substantively.

But while an exercise in political power, Old Spring Village's reconstruction program is also a matter of land politics and urbanization. As a scheme to transfer construction land quota to urban areas, it is probably successful. However, it does result in a net loss of agricultural land by taking household construction land that is, in reality, used in part for agriculture. As a one-size-fits-all government urbanization program that sought to reengineer a rural community with urban design, it was bound to elicit disparate responses.

For a small handful, the new homes seemed appropriate. One villager identified these satisfied villagers as the office workers (shangban zu J- W)W).228 Indeed, there was a group-slightly broader than the village's few office workers-that sought urban amenities and invested heavily in their new homes.229 They were pleased with the project.

But for the most part the villagers did not embrace urban life, objecting to the design of their new settlement and circumventing its urbanizing agenda. They kept their chickens

228 Interview #66 229 Interviews #69, 96

70 and their firewood; they complained about the loss of their rural lifestyle; some even fetched water from the well. Hence urbanizing erstwhile rural homes will likely take time-and the difficulty of the task raises questions, as well, about the eagerness of migrant workers to fully urbanize in cities.

To the extent that this in situ urbanization requires separating peasants from their animals and convincing them to use utilities, it is economic as well as psychological.

Stripping the poorest villagers of easy access to money-saving livestock and encouraging them to spend more money on utilities runs the risk of destroying the self-sufficiency of these households. Economic growth or, more likely, welfare programs will have to step in to help. Yet while eminently possible, building a village economy on subsidies is not the program's goal. So presumably the preponderance of villagers are to find other ways to support themselves economically. One approach would be specialization within the village.

But besides tourism (to which the relocation area's plan repeatedly refers and on which the town seems eager to base its rural economy), agriculture, and perhaps elder care, it is not clear what specialties the village is fit for; and these sectors seem unlikely to employ the whole village. Handing out recovered farmland in small, equal plots to each villager seems a poor start down the road to specialization, although the village's tendency towards cooperatives may equitably and efficiently solve this problem.

Regardless, villagers have for years been migrating to urban areas to seek employment Hence the village itself serves for many of its legal residents as something between a vacation home, a convalescent home, and a retirement home. It seems strange to build such a large supply of new housing-more than existed beforehand-in an area that, given free mobility, younger residents would probably choose to desert, particularly

71 in a town that plans for its own rural population to fall by over a quarter by 2030.230 And, having decided to build housing, it seems stranger still to make it so difficult for the handicapped or elderly to navigate.

Indeed, questions of architectural and urban design are at the foundation of the project. The local state did not focus on design in implementing the project, although in accordance with central dictates design was used to engineer villager in situ urbanization.

Yet design was fundamental to the often negative responses of villagers. And it is design that seems set to bring about changes in social interaction and economic behavior within the village.

It is important to caution, at this point, that this thesis presents findings from a single village reconstruction project, and moreover that the project in that village is only partially built. A broader understanding of the process and impacts of village reconstruction will have to rest upon the analysis of more case studies.

230 "Hill Break Town 4M:M." Section 41. Some of this decline in rural population can probably be Attributed to plans to move villages adjacent to the town seat into the town seat itself. Indeed, the town expects the town seat population to grow so much that the town's total population will grow slightly.

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