Brokering power and property in China's townships

Abstract

This paper concerns the process of power at the periphery of state bureaucracy with a focus on township governments and their land development projects in the last two decades. I argue that townships at the bottom of the state bureaucracy operate like power brokers between the state and the village. When dealing with the formal party–state system above them, the township's delegated power is highly uncertain. Townships choose to maneuver in the unspecified legal and administrative zone to bypass the scrutiny of the supervising government. When it comes to the village below them, the township's power is under-defined, and therefore can be stretched to intensify and centralize the grips over village resources and land. In both cases, township officials strategize to maximize their control of village land and profit from the booming land-lease market in China's fast industrializing and urbanizing areas. Townships' land deals reflect the general power process of decentralization. Their brokerage of power corresponds directly with that of property rights in post-reform China.     

Comment on Anthony Downs's “Have Housing Prices Risen Faster in Portland Than Elsewhere?”

Abstract

Forms of urban containment are found in more than a hundred jurisdictions across the United States. The lightning rod for the debate over urban containment is metropolitan Portland, OR, which has had an urban growth boundary for a generation. In the early 1990s, housing prices there soared, providing fodder to interests opposed to public interference in the private development market. Downs contributes to the debate by finding that over the long term, metropolitan Portland's housing prices are more in line with its West Coast and national contemporaries than not.

This comment first reviews some of the literature associating growth controls and growth management with housing price changes. I then examine how Oregon's and metropolitan Portland's particular institutional measures ameliorate potential price effects, offering lessons for containment programs everywhere. I caution that urban containment is here to stay and that the best way for development interests to protect themselves from undesirable outcomes is to advocate Portland‐style urban containment.     

Comment on Carl Abbott's “The Portland region: Where city and suburbs talk to each other—and often agree”

Abstract

The Portland, OR, area's urban growth boundary is an idea whose benefits to the region may depend on a willingness to expand the boundary occasionally. The parable contained in this comment suggests that the declared unwillingness to expand the urban growth boundary could have contributed to Portland's recent sudden increase in housing prices. It further suggests that an inflexible attitude toward the boundary could cause long‐run losses in employment in the Portland region, with few if any offsetting environmental benefits. Other regions should be aware of the potential drawbacks of installing such a boundary.     

Some realities about sprawl and urban decline

Abstract

Many urban analysts believe suburban sprawl has become an important issue because it helps generate two types of problems: growth‐related difficulties like rising traffic congestion, and high concentrations of poor minority households in core‐area neighborhoods. However, a careful regression analysis of measures of both sprawl and urban decline shows no statistically significant relation between these two conditions.

The basic nature of the American urban development process would cause core‐area poverty concentrations even if sprawl were replaced by more compact growth forms. But sprawl does aggravate growth‐related problems. Those problems could be attacked through either alternative overall growth strategies—such as high‐density, tightly bounded growth—or specific anti‐sprawl tactics, such as regional tax‐base sharing and regional coordination of land uses. But no feasible policies are likely either to alleviate traffic congestion much or cause most American regions to abandon sprawl.     

A typology of U.S. suburban places

Abstract

Suburbs are becoming increasingly diverse as they continue to comprise larger portions of the metropolitan population and employment. Former perceptions of suburban uniformity are being eroded by the variance in form and function that now characterizes them. This article analyzes data collected on 3,567 non‐central‐city, incorporated, metropolitan places in the United States along the dimensions of population, place, economy, and government. Specifically, a hierarchical clustering procedure, combined with discriminant analysis, identifies 10 distinct types of suburbs in the data.

Level, composition, and combinations of wealth, employment, and race drive the distinctions among suburban clusters, many of which do not fit our traditional characterizations of suburbia. In fact, only about half of all the suburbs considered are strongly characterized by these traditional traits, and these suburbs contain less than one out of every three residents considered in the analysis.     

房屋征收补偿协议的行政诉讼问题①--以《国有土地上房屋征收与补偿条例》第25条为视点

房屋征收补偿协议是一种行政合同,按其属性应纳入行政诉讼。但问题在于,现行行政诉讼制度不能容纳这一诉讼类型：原告资格、协议效力、诉讼竞合、证据规则、判决种类等方面都提出了新的要求。这些问题认识不清,已造成实务的混乱和理论的争议。那么,目前实务上需要哪些调整,未来行政诉讼法又需要哪些方面突破,这些都要在行政诉讼新类型制度上来解释,并且在契约行政与合作治理的理论背景下来考察。     

竞业限制协议履行中的若干法律问题研究

劳动者解除竞业限制约定的前提,是竞业限制期限内用人单位未支付经济补偿已达三个月;劳动者应在用人单位迟延支付经济补偿时进行催告,并在三个月后通知其解除竞业限制约定;用人单位解除竞业限制协议,必须采取劳动者知道或应当知道的方式;劳动者解除竞业限制约定后,还可求用人单位支付拖欠的经济补偿金。     

法人精神损害赔偿的正当性

法人精神损害赔偿当取决于民法原则、目的和司法问题之解决,而不仅由单纯的一般概念和法学概念推导决定。民法理论上,民事主体拟制属性和民法公平原则与目的均支持法人精神损害赔偿;司法实践中,填平补偿法人非财产损害、对法人非财产损害引起的大规模自然人精神损害的补偿都急需法人精神损害赔偿之确定。     

刑事拘留引起的国家赔偿与赔偿监督

由于我国刑事诉讼法的规定和公安机关办案程序的原因,公安机关撤销案件的法律依据缺位,对公安机关采取刑事拘留措施后引起的国家赔偿和检察机关赔偿监督造成很大的困扰,文章提出解决现实困境的设想:公安机关撤销指控或出具《侦查终结告知书》。     

农村土地征收补偿法律制度的完善

当前我国农村土地征收补偿法律制度存在诸多缺陷,导致失地农民合法权益遭受严重侵害。我国土地征收补偿应以公平为原则,按市场价格进行补偿,补偿以实际发生的物质损失为限。通过村民自治权和履行民主程序解决补偿费的分配问题。