Spatial restructuring and the logic of industrial land redevelopment in urban China: I. Theoretical considerations

We harness the game-theoretic approach to propose a new conceptual framework for industrial land redevelopment research. Stemming from Harvey's notion of “urbanization of capital” and Foucault's study on “power relations”, we analyze the driver and regulator of urban spatial restructuring. We contend that the redevelopment of industrial land should be re-conceptualized as the competition for land rent gap or land rent surplus. Land redevelopment in urban China could be theoretically interpreted as multiple games between the original land-user and local government or the alliance between local government and new developers. Different equilibriums of games lead to various models/types of redevelopment.