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. R ural 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 ...............................................................................................................................