**3. Materials and Methods**

#### *3.1. Study Case*

Changan Town is located on the south of Dongguan City, Guangdong, China, which is in the Shenzhen-Guangzhou Economic Corridor. It is known as the "world factory zone" (see Figure 1). There are 13 villages or communities under the jurisdiction of Changan Town, which covers an area of 81.5 km2. The level of socio-economic development has increased rapidly since 1978, with a population size of 674,000 and 76.03 billion yuan GDP, Changan was ranked as the seventh most important industrial town of 1000 in China in 2019. However, there are pervasive informal land-use practices in Changan for numerous reasons. First, the specific administrative structure in Dongguan has four levels: city, town, village, and group. Second, the center of economic growth is at the grassroots level, especially at the levels of the town, village, and group. Third, there is a cultural tradition of significant autonomy in the villages in Guangdong; villages and the village collectives determine their affairs independently, including decisions regarding land utilization, building plans, infrastructure development, and their execution. Finally, the rapid economic growth in Changan has been supported by the sufficient supply of rural land; villagers collectives own the property rights over rural land by law, which they mobilized to attract industrial investment to increase the villagers collectives' income in pragmatic ways that circumvented the formal land system. For these reasons, Changan Town in Dongguan City was selected for the case study, as it can illuminate the relationship between the state and informal land-use practices and institutional innovation at the grassroots level in China.

**Figure 1.** The location of Chang' An Town in the PRD.

## *3.2. Study Method*

The case study focuses on three dimensions. The first dimension is the informal land, which is the core factor of production. The second dimension consists of the formal and informal land-use institutions of the state, local governments, and the grassroots level, which is the second factor of production. These two dimensions contributed significantly to the urban development and economic growth in Changan. The third dimension is the creator of the land institutions, and the primary actors in economic growth, such as the state, local governments, enterprises, villagers, and village collectives (see Table 1).

**Table 1.** The interactors of land institutional change.


This study employed qualitative research methods, such as in-depth interviews and document analysis, to analyze the root cause and forms of informal land-use practices and their relationship with the state in Changan Town during different socio-economic and historical circumstances since 1978. First, in-depth interviews were conducted with local villagers, village cadres, and entrepreneurs, investigating how they developed informal land practices and coping strategies for managing regulations by the state and local governments. The interviews were conducted with villagers and village cadres from Xiaobian, Jinxia, and Yongtou; the managers and workers in enterprises funded by investors from Hong Kong and Taiwan were also interviewed. In addition, in-depth interviews were conducted with local officers from the urban planning and management office, the land resource management office, and the "three old (old towns, old villages, and old factories) redevelopment" office in Changan Town, investigating the roles and attitudes of the townships and city governments regarding informal land-use practices. The interviews were conducted on 10 October, 2015 and throughout February 2016. A total of 23 persons were interviewed, conversing with some individuals multiple times, culminating in more than 33 appointments, that ranged from 0.5 to 3 h, each. The entire process was recorded with the consent of the interviewees.

Secondly, document analysis methods were employed; archives, newspapers, official statistics, historical documents, and public statements of senior officials from Beijing were analyzed in order to explore the forms of informal land-use practices and the goals and dynamic mechanisms of the changes to land institutions in different historical circumstances. The documents included *The Annals of Changan Town, Ten Preferential Treatments for Foreign Investors in Setting up Factories in Dongguan County*, *Measures of Guangdong Province for the Administration of the Transfer of the Right to Use the Collective Land for Construction Purposes*, *Some Opinions of Guangdong Province on Implementing the Three Old Transformation to Promote the Intensive Land Use*, *Specific Rules for the Enforcement of the Three Old Transformation in Dongguan City*, and the documentary, *Changan's Development in Past Thirty Years*. Land-use data and information were also obtained.

As discussed in the empirical section of the study, the root causes and methods of informal land-use practices during different historical circumstances were explored, including the state's motivations, macro-backgrounds, features of urban development, economic growth, and the regulatory practices concerning formal land institutions in different historical circumstances. These causes and methods can be understood by disclosing the relationship between the informal land-use practice and the political purposes of the state.
