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This paper takes issue with the desakota model developed by Terry McGee by elucidating the illegal land use and construction in the rural–urban transition zone in China, with the additional case study of Tianhe Village in Guangzhou City. The paper emphasises the need to examine the geography of illegal activities along the approach of geographies of difference. It has shown that illegal land use and construction is prevalent in rural China. In rural areas where cultivated land has been converted to non-agricultural purposes, peasants are left with no alternative but to use land and construct buildings illegally. Some have increased their income by leasing out flats to migrant workers, whereas others have not been able to do this. This study has revealed that underneath the positive and integrative picture portrayed by the desakota model is its negative and disintegrative counterpart. Illegal land use and construction is one such example. Unless we incorporate both into our studies, we will not be able to comprehend the urban morphology of Chinese city regions in the new millennium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both academicians and businessmen in the West have been fascinated by the recent reforms in the urban land administration system in many parts of China, including the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, Guangzhou, Fushun and Shanghai. There have been developments of pricing systems for urban land parcels, in the form of either land user fee or land tax, and of some kinds of land market, including leaseholdship for foreign investors. As a corollary, parcel alter parcel of raw land has been transformed, and new houses for sale spring up like mushrooms. These drastic developments can only be fruitfully examined and evaluated with respect to an informed understanding of the pre-reform situation. This paper attempts to provide a preliminary understanding of the urban land development process in China by examining the rationale and the nature of urban land production, that is, why and how raw land is allocated and serviced and serviced land is used and re-used, in the light of the interaction of various agents within the socialist economy and state. The writers hope that the paper will lay down the groundwork for an understanding and evaluation of the various reform measures implemented in the urban land system, namely, administration and allocation, in the past few years. It is also the intention of the author that this discussion of the Chinese case will contribute to the debate in the literature of urban land development as a whole.