| Country | China | |
| City |
Guangzhou
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| Name | Flora Village Shareholding Company | |
| Date | 1997 | |
| Description of the project | Land expropriation in Flora village took place between 1997 and 2002. When the process started in 1997, the village committee set up a collective property company to manage land contracts and real estate rentals, which later evolved into a shareholding company that distributes shares to the villagers. By 2002, about 30 percent of the village’s cultivated land was left and the 3,000 Flora villagers kept their house sites. In the same year, the village was granted urban administrative status.
The Flora village shareholding company manages the village’s own industrial zone, rents out property to the villagers, enabling them to run restaurants, hairdressers, grocery stores, and internet cafes. It provides collective welfare to Flora villagers, subsistence allowances for the elderly who can no longer make a living, as well as a monthly livelihood subsidy of 150 yuan to all villagers who have reached the age of 60. In addition, the company makes deals with new firms built on the village land to give priority to local villagers when filling job vacancies to help unemployed residents find jobs. In terms of other community services, the shareholding company has been subsidizing administration expenses and community services, spending about a quarter of its annual income on community infrastructure, policing, and sanitation. For example, in 2009, it spent a million yuan renovating a local primary school and a community park. Finally, given the company’s rich knowledge of local people and culture as well as its extensive social networks within the community, it plays a key role in mediating conflicts between the residents. The villagers also perceive the company as the authority in the community, rather than the residents’ committee. |
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| Urban Co-Governance | Moderate | |
| Enabling State | Moderate | |
| Pooling | Moderate | |
| Experimentalism | Moderate | |
| Tech Justice | Weak | |
| Project Website | ||
| References, sources, contact person(s) | Chung, H., & Unger, J. (n.d.). The Guangdong model of urbanisation: collective village land and the making of a new middle class. China Perspectives, 3, 33–41.
Tang, B. (2015). “Not Rural but Not Urban”: Community Governance in China’s Urban Villages. The China Quarterly, 223, 724–744. Questionnaire. |
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