'Marketization' and institutions in Chinese inner-city redevelopment: A commentary of Junhua Lu's Beijing's old and dilapidated housing renewal

The redevelopment of Chinese cities is a rapidly evolving game, in which both rules and roles shift with dizzying speed. The preceding article by Professor Lu Junhua raises the fundamental issues facing the redevelopment of inner-city neighborhoods. In particular, she outlines the impact of the emerging land market. For readers not familiar with the Chinese context, however, some extra background explanation may be desirable. Moreover, since some of the content of Professor Lu's article was written in 1993, the dynamics of development in Beijing have changed, though the basic problems remain as she described. This short article is intended to clarify some of this background and transformation by drawing in greater detail on our planning experience, and by focusing on how the interests of some key players are expressed in the gray zone between market and planned economy. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.