Institutional determinants of brownfield formation in Chinese cities and urban villages

• Two different types of brownfield exist in Chinese cities: brownfields in urban areas and brownfields in urban villages.
• Deindustrialization of economic activity in the urban core is the main cause of brownfield creation in China.
• Brownfields in urban areas are formed from a top-down command, while those in urban villages from a bottom-up mechanism.
• Brownfields in urban areas are occupied by large State-Owned Enterprise and key stakeholders involved are simple and clear.
• Brownfields in urban villages distribute scatteredly; key stakeholders involved are fuzzy.

Brownfields are spatial manifestations of previous economic activities, and their redevelopment may contribute to a more sustainable urban land-use in the rapidly urbanising environment of post-reform China. Owing to China's unique institutional background, two types of brownfields can be distinguished in China, namely of brownfields in urban areas and brownfields in urban villages. Based on this twofold classification, a stage model consisting of three stages (industrialization, suburbanization, and deindustrialization) is introduced to conceptualize the formation process of brownfields in both types of locations in Chinese cities. Deindustrialization of economic activity in the urban core is considered as the main cause of brownfield creation. Differing characteristics of brownfields in urban areas and brownfields in urban villages are interpreted in detail, consisting of land ownership, size of the site, spatial distribution, the mechanisms by which the sites are created, and the stakeholders involved. This article concludes that future research on brownfield redeveloping strategies in China needs to pay particular attention to different institutional settings of urban areas and urban villages.