The Impact of Governance Structures on the Distribution of Land Consolidation Benefits in Urban Areas: Case Studies in Ningbo, China

Against the backdrop of an urban-rural dual structure, governance structure significantly influences the fairness and sharing of land value increment profits from land consolidation in various regions. This paper develops a spatial-institutional analytical framework, reflects on the traditional government-led land quota planning management mechanism and advocates optimizing governance structures in land consolidation to facilitate urban-rural element flows and the sharing of land value increment profits. This paper selects two comprehensive land consolidation cases in the Fenghua District and Cixi City of Ningbo, representing government-led and village collective self-organized governance structures. The research shows that the Fenghua case adopts a government-led state-owned enterprise coordinated governance structure, which state-owned enterprises bear operational risks and the majority of profit sharing, while village collectives, as landowners, are insufficiently protected in benefit sharing. The Cixi case employs a government-embedded village-town governance structure, with the village collectives as the main operating body, allowing collective construction land to enter the market to ensure the sharing of community profits. Both governance structures promote the bidirectional flow of urban-rural land resource elements; the former significantly drives urban development, while the latter ensures better benefit sharing for village collectives. The research proposes that optimizing governance structures and improving land quota allocation mechanisms can further stimulate various entities’ participation in land consolidation and land value activation.