Berkeley Planning Journal

In Developing China: Land, politics and social conditions, George C. S. Lin has produced a much-needed comprehensive account of the dramatic evolution of land use in China in the post-Mao era. He begins by focusing not on “land use” per se but on “land development,” which he defines as the “process in which land has been brought into more productive and profitable use” (p. 14). The key point here is Lin’s attention to the ways in which land in China is being connected into the circuits of capital, leading to dramatic changes to the social meaning of its use. In the course of his analysis, he demonstrates that this is not a background issue in China’s overall transformation, but, in fact, is absolutely central to the dramatic political, economic, social, and cultural changes reshaping the country today.