*Article* **Does Environmental Decentralization Affect the Supply of Urban Construction Land? Evidence from China**

**Lida Han <sup>1</sup> , Xi Wu <sup>1</sup> and Peng Tang 2,\***


**Abstract:** Against the background of Chinese decentralization, the preferences and choices of local governments significantly affect the scale and structure of urban construction land supply. Due to the shortage of financial funds and the political performance pursuit of local governments, environmental decentralization gives local governments greater autonomy in environmental management, and increases the possibility for local governments relying on land transfer income to make up for the financial gap and provide public goods and services. This paper analyses the impact of environmental decentralization on the construction land supply scale of local government based on the panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2003 to 2015. The results indicate that: (1) environmental decentralization has a positive effect on the increase in urban construction land supply scale; (2) environmental decentralization affects urban construction land supply by strengthening land financial dependence and distorting land resources misallocation; (3) there are regional disparities in the effect of environmental decentralization on urban construction land supply. The impact is greater in regions with high financial pressure, high economic growth pressure, and low environmental protection pressure. In summary, some policy suggestions are put forward to reasonably supply urban construction land against the background of Chinese decentralization.

**Keywords:** environmental decentralization; urban construction land supply; fiscal decentralization; political centralization

### **1. Introduction**

Land resources are extremely important for ensuring food security, facilitating economic development, and protecting the ecological environment [1,2]. Urbanization has accelerated the conversion of agricultural land around cities to non-agricultural construction uses, which is a common problem faced by the whole world [3,4]. This phenomenon is particularly acute in developing countries, such as India and China [5]. Over the years, the important role of land in China's rapid economic development cannot be ignored. A great deal of construction land has been provided by the Chinese government to support urbanization and industrialization [6]. According to data from the "China urban construction statistical yearbook", the area of urban construction land in China increased from 6720 km<sup>2</sup> to 52,761.3 km<sup>2</sup> , with an average annual growth of 6.06%, from 1981 to 2016. In contrast, this rate of urban population growth over the same period was only 2.98%. However, economic growth that heavily relies on land not only causes many social problems such as land finance, illegal land use, inefficiency of industrial land, and soaring housing prices [7], but also leads to environmental problems, such as declining biodiversity and environmental pollution [8]. Governments are working to curb urban sprawl through environmental regulation [9–13].

In response to environmental problems, including those caused by urban sprawl and land resources misallocation, the Chinese government has adopted a decentralized

**Citation:** Han, L.; Wu, X.; Tang, P. Does Environmental Decentralization Affect the Supply of Urban Construction Land? Evidence from China. *Land* **2023**, *12*, 601. https:// doi.org/10.3390/land12030601

Academic Editors: Li Ma, Yingnan Zhang, Muye Gan and Zhengying Shan

Received: 10 February 2023 Revised: 26 February 2023 Accepted: 1 March 2023 Published: 3 March 2023

**Copyright:** © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

management model (environmental federalism) [14]. In other words, central and local governments share environmental management powers. Local governments are responsible for specific matters of environmental management, including pollution prevention, ecological protection, and environmental access management. The central government is responsible for supervising and coordinating local governments. According to Environmental Protection Law of the People's Republic of China, all factors affecting human survival and development are the objects of environmental management, including natural elements (atmosphere, water, land, etc.), as well as artificial transformation elements (nature reserves, urban and rural areas, etc.) [15]. In terms of land use management, the improvement of central environmental protection supervision has prompted local governments to rationally plan the scale and structure of construction land supply, and the supply of highly polluting industrial land has been restricted. Statistics show that the supply area of construction land gradually declined after reaching a peak of 374,804.03 hm<sup>2</sup> in 2013; the proportion of the land transferred by agreement plummeted from 50.08% in 2007 to 16.06% in 2008 (the agreed transfer can reflect the supply of industrial land) [16]. This suggests that changes in local government autonomy alter the allocation of resources. This phenomenon also exists in other locations worldwide, such as Montpellier (France), Rome (Italy), and Jakarta (Indonesia), where the expansion of construction use is also affected by decentralization [17,18].

Construction land expansion is a complex issue. In addition to environmental regulations, there are many factors that affect the expansion of urban construction land, including land use planning, land systems, public policy, etc. [19,20]. The factors influencing the supply of construction land under China's unique institutional background are particularly complex. First, the Chinese government is the sole subject of land acquisition and transfer. The government can obtain most of the land appreciation profits by acquiring land at a low price and selling it at a high price [21]. Therefore, they intervene in the scale and structure of urban construction land supply according to their own interests [22–24]. Second, fiscal decentralization and political centralization increase incentives for local government officials to sell land for fiscal revenue and political performance [25–29], resulting in an excessive supply of urban construction land [30]. In addition, some factors, such as economic development level, population size, and industrial structure, can also affect the government's land supply [31–33].

With the advancement of urbanization around the world, curbing the disorderly expansion of cities and determining the reasonable scale of urban construction land supply are common concerns for all countries [34,35]. The government plays an important role in controlling the scale and structure of construction land supply. The scale of construction land supply is the result of the government's resource allocation after comprehensive consideration of various factors, such as environmental protection and economic development. Decentralization affects the allocation of resources by changing the government's autonomy in the choice of economic, political, environmental, and other goals. How to design the administrative management system to achieve better allocation of resources by the government has attracted much attention. Our research provides Chinese experience for this. Some of the literature has analyzed the logic of massive land supply by local governments under the background of fiscal decentralization and political centralization. However, the impact of the environmental protection assessment requirements of the central government and the evolution of the environmental management system on construction land supply by local governments has not been paid attention to. Therefore, this paper incorporates environmental decentralization into the framework of Chinese decentralization and analyzes the influence of environmental decentralization on local government land supply. The main issues addressed in this paper include: (1) Does environmental decentralization affect local government urban construction land supply? (2) How does environmental decentralization affect the supply of urban construction land by local government? (3) Is there regional difference in the influence of environmental decentralization on urban construction land supply? Compared with the existing research of scholars, this paper proposes innovations

in the following aspects: (1) environmental decentralization is incorporated into the Chinese decentralization framework, which expands the Chinese decentralization system. (2) Based on the Chinese decentralization framework, the urban construction land supply behaviors of local governments are analyzed. The impact of environmental decentralization on urban construction land supply is emphatically analyzed, which provides a new concept for studying the influencing factors of local government land supply. (3) Combined with the incentive mechanism of urban construction land supply under Chinese decentralization, the impact of environmental decentralization on land supply in regions with different financial pressure, economic growth pressure, and environmental protection pressure is considered, which provides policy directions for coordinating economic development and environmental protection.

#### **2. Institutional Background and Theoretical Hypothesis**

#### *2.1. Institutional Background*

China has a unique institutional background of fiscal decentralization and political centralization, which is different from the fiscal decentralization and federal political system of Western countries [36]. In terms of finance, China implements a tax-sharing system, and the fiscal budgets of governments at all levels are relatively independent. This means that local governments have certain economic decision-making power and can govern according to their own preferences [37]. In terms of politics and bureaucracy, China is in power with one party and implements vertical management with upward responsibility, which forms a multi-departmental M-shaped hierarchy [38,39]. The superior (or central) government has the right to appraise the performance of local government officials and decide on their promotion [40].

Corresponding to the delegated powers, China implements a decentralized environmental management system [41]. That is, environmental decentralization. Environmental decentralization originates from environmental federalism, which studies the environmental management functions of all levels of government [42]. In the "pyramid" system, where the central government is located above and the local governments are located below, local governments are authorized to participate in environmental management affairs [43]. It is generally believed that environmental centralization can effectively control cross-regional pollution, and that environmental decentralization is more flexible and targeted [44–47]. Since the reform and opening up in 1978, the evolution of environmental decentralization in China can be divided into three stages [48]. The first stage was from 1978 to 1993. During this stage, financial and administrative powers were highly decentralized, and the degree of environmental decentralization was high. The central government lacked supervision over local environmental affairs. The second stage was from 1994 to 2007. During this stage, with the increase in central government's fiscal revenue, the environmental management powers of central government improved, and the degree of environmental decentralization decreased. The third stage is from 2008 to the present. With the adjustment of the government environmental protection institutions and the increased emphasis on environmental protection, the central government decentralized environmental administrative power and enhanced environmental supervision power and environmental governance incentives. Several instances in the literature have confirmed the beneficial effects of environmental decentralization in China, including promoting green development and pollution control [49,50]. However, some scholars believe that the institutional background of fiscal decentralization and political centralization in China makes the incentives and constraints of local government environmental protection mismatched. When decentralizing environmental rights, local governments will relax environmental control, which forms a race to the bottom and aggravates environmental pollution [51,52].

The fiscal decentralization, political centralization, and environmental decentralization implemented in China can be summarized as Chinese decentralization.

#### *2.2. Theoretical Hypothesis 2.2. Theoretical Hypothesis*

*Land* **2023**, *12*, x FOR PEER REVIEW 4 of 19

The institutional arrangement of Chinese decentralization affects the construction land supply by local government in three aspects: fiscal decentralization, political centralization, and environmental decentralization. In terms of fiscal decentralization, the 1994 tax-sharing reform led to a misalignment of the executive and fiscal powers of the government [53]. Fiscal revenues flow upwards to the central government, and the responsible affairs remain in the local government, resulting in a huge fiscal gap [54,55]. Decentralization has led local governments to provide land for construction to ease fiscal pressures and cover fiscal deficits. This is manifested in the expansion of fiscal revenue through "land rent" and "land tax" [56]. The "land rent" refers to the one-time income obtained by transferring land. Selling commercial and residential land at a high price can obtain more "land rent" [57,58]. The "land tax" refers to attracting investment by selling industrial land at low prices, and developing industries to obtain continuous tax revenue [59]. When it comes to political centralization, Chinese officials are usually accountable to the top. Local government officials are promoted through excellent performance appraisals [60]. Economic growth is the core of performance measurement, so there is fierce competition around GDP growth [61–63]. In order to win the GDP championship, local governments often sell industrial land at reserve prices or free of charge to attract investment and promote economic growth, which increases the supply of construction land [28,29]. The importance of environmental indicators in performance appraisals has increased in recent years, which limits the expansion of construction land [36]. Environmental decentralization affects the supply of construction land by relaxing or tightening environmental constraints after weighing the importance of economic growth and environmental protection. After incorporating environmental decentralization into the Chinese decentralization framework, the incentives and constraints of local government construction land supply are shown in Figure 1. The institutional arrangement of Chinese decentralization affects the construction land supply by local government in three aspects: fiscal decentralization, political centralization, and environmental decentralization. In terms of fiscal decentralization, the 1994 tax-sharing reform led to a misalignment of the executive and fiscal powers of the government [53]. Fiscal revenues flow upwards to the central government, and the responsible affairs remain in the local government, resulting in a huge fiscal gap [54,55]. Decentralization has led local governments to provide land for construction to ease fiscal pressures and cover fiscal deficits. This is manifested in the expansion of fiscal revenue through "land rent" and "land tax" [56]. The "land rent" refers to the one-time income obtained by transferring land. Selling commercial and residential land at a high price can obtain more "land rent" [57,58]. The "land tax" refers to attracting investment by selling industrial land at low prices, and developing industries to obtain continuous tax revenue [59]. When it comes to political centralization, Chinese officials are usually accountable to the top. Local government officials are promoted through excellent performance appraisals [60]. Economic growth is the core of performance measurement, so there is fierce competition around GDP growth [61–63]. In order to win the GDP championship, local governments often sell industrial land at reserve prices or free of charge to attract investment and promote economic growth, which increases the supply of construction land [28,29]. The importance of environmental indicators in performance appraisals has increased in recent years, which limits the expansion of construction land [36]. Environmental decentralization affects the supply of construction land by relaxing or tightening environmental constraints after weighing the importance of economic growth and environmental protection. After incorporating environmental decentralization into the Chinese decentralization framework, the incentives and constraints of local government construction land supply are shown in Figure 1.

The fiscal decentralization, political centralization, and environmental decentraliza-

tion implemented in China can be summarized as Chinese decentralization.

**Figure 1.** The influence of Chinese decentralization on construction land supply. **Figure 1.** The influence of Chinese decentralization on construction land supply.

Under the specific institutional background of Chinese decentralization, environmental decentralization gives local governments greater autonomy in choosing economic development goals and environmental protection goals [64]. Local governments' economic incentives and political incentives do not match the environmental protection constraints, which causes local governments to prioritize economic growth over environmental welfare. Local governments ignore environmental issues and supply a great deal of construction land to generate revenue and boost the economy. Under the specific institutional background of Chinese decentralization, environmental decentralization gives local governments greater autonomy in choosing economic development goals and environmental protection goals [64]. Local governments' economic incentives and political incentives do not match the environmental protection constraints, which causes local governments to prioritize economic growth over environmental welfare. Local governments ignore environmental issues and supply a great deal of construction land to generate revenue and boost the economy.

Hence, the first hypothesis is obtained: environmental decentralization will increase the urban construction land supply by local government. Hence, the first hypothesis is obtained: environmental decentralization will increase the urban construction land supply by local government.

When environmental management power is decentralized, the local government will compare the importance of economic incentives, political incentives, and environmental When environmental management power is decentralized, the local government will compare the importance of economic incentives, political incentives, and environmental constraints. Against the background of the shortage of local government's fiscal revenue and the pursuit of political performance, environmental decentralization increases the motivation of local governments to pursue "land rent", "land tax", and "attracting investment

from land", so that local governments reduce environmental protection requirements. This leads to the intensification of the local government's land financial dependence and land resources misallocation. Thus, the scale of construction land supply is increased.

Hence, the second hypothesis is obtained: environmental decentralization increases the urban construction land supply scale of local governments by increasing land financial dependence and land resources misallocation.

Environmental decentralization affects construction land supply by changing the economic incentives, political incentives, and environmental constraints of local governments. Therefore, in regions with different financial pressures, economic growth pressures, and environmental protection pressures, the incentives and constraints of land supply are also distinct. In regions with high financial pressure, local governments have stronger economic incentives. When environmental power is decentralized, there is a stronger incentive to provide a great deal of land at the expense of the environment [65]. In regions with high economic growth pressure, local governments have a stronger motivation to attract investment by land [66,67]. Environmental decentralization will increase the supply of industrial land, which expands the scale of construction land supply. In regions with high environmental protection pressures, local governments have stricter constraints on the preservation of the environment. When environmental power is devolved, local governments will optimize local environmental management and limit the scale of land supply [68].

Hence, the third hypothesis is obtained: there are regional disparities in the effects of environmental decentralization on urban construction land supply. In the regions with high financial pressure, high economic growth pressure, and low environmental protection pressure, the impact of environmental decentralization on construction land supply is more significant.

#### **3. Research Design**

### *3.1. Model Settings*

In the context of Chinese decentralization, environmental, fiscal decentralization, and political centralization jointly affect the urban construction land supply by local governments. Thus, the following fixed-effect model is established [50].

$$LS\_{\rm it} = \beta\_0 + \beta\_1 ED\_{\rm it} + \beta\_2 FD\_{\rm it} + \beta\_3 FAI\_{\rm it} + \beta\_4 IPC\_{\rm it} + \beta\_i X\_{\rm it} + \theta\_i + \mu\_l + \varepsilon\_{\rm it} \tag{1}$$

where *LSit* is the explained variable, representing construction land supply; *EDit* is the explanatory variable, representing environmental decentralization; *FDit* is fiscal decentralization; *FAIit* and *IPCit* are fixed asset investment and environmental protection investment, respectively, representing political centralization; *Xit* are other control variables, including per capita GDP, population, urbanization rate of land, the proportion of secondary and tertiary industries, financial pressure; *i* and *t* represent the provinces and periods under consideration, respectively; *β*<sup>0</sup> is the constant term; *β*1–*β<sup>i</sup>* are coefficients; *θ<sup>i</sup>* and *µ<sup>t</sup>* represent the province and time effects, respectively; *εit* is the random error term. In order to make the data smoother and reduce heteroscedasticity, the non-proportional data are dealt with as logarithms.

### *3.2. Variable Selection*

(1) Explained variable. The construction land supply scale is used to describe the construction land supply behavior of local government. The data sources of urban construction land supply in the existing literature mainly include the "China Land and Resources Statistical Yearbook" [33], the land survey results sharing application service platform, and the network of "landchina" [69,70]. Among them, the time span of the data in the "China Land and Resources Statistical Yearbook" is relatively long. Therefore, this paper uses the construction land transfer area in the "China Land and Resources Statistical Yearbook" to express the scale of land supply.

(2) Explanatory variable. Environmental decentralization reflects the functional division of central and local governments in environmental management affairs. The higher the

degree of environmental decentralization, the greater the authority of local governments in environmental affairs. Referring to the existing literature, the relative personnel number of environmental protection agencies at all levels is used to calculate environmental decentralization [71,72]. The calculation formula for environmental decentralization is as follows.

$$ED\_{it} = \left[\frac{LEPP\_{it}/POP\_{it}}{NEPP\_t/POP\_t}\right] \times \left[1 - \left(\frac{GDP\_{it}}{GDP\_t}\right)\right] \tag{2}$$

where *EDit* is environmental decentralization; *LEPPit*, *POPit*, *GDPit* are the personnel number of environmental protection agencies, population, and gross domestic product of province *i* in year *t*; *LEPP<sup>t</sup>* , *POP<sup>t</sup>* , *GDP<sup>t</sup>* are the number of personnel in environmental protection agencies, population, and gross domestic product of whole country in year *t*; (1 − *GDPit*/*GDPt*) is the economic scaling factor for reducing endogenous interference [73].

(3) Control variables. Under the framework of Chinese decentralization, the impact of fiscal decentralization and political centralization on land supply cannot be ignored. Therefore, three special control variables were selected, including fiscal decentralization, fixed asset investment per unit of GDP, and industrial pollution control completed investment. Fiscal decentralization typically includes revenue decentralization and expenditure decentralization [74]. Fiscal revenue incentives can increase local government construction land supply. Thus, this paper uses fiscal revenue decentralization. Fixed assets investment is used to represent the promotion incentives of political centralization [75], and industrial pollution control completed investment is used to represent the environmental constraints of political centralization [76]. For the control of other social and economic factors, referring to the research of Wang (2015), Zhou (2019), and Li (2021) [32,33,50], six control variables are selected from the five aspects: economic development, population size, urban expansion, industrial structure, and financial pressure. Specific indicators include the per capita GDP and its square, population, land urbanization rate, the proportion of secondary and tertiary industries, and financial pressure.

The contents of the variables are shown in Table 1.


**Table 1.** Variable selection.

#### *3.3. Data Sources*

Since the personnel number of environmental protection agencies at provincial level has only been updated to 2015, the panel data of 30 provinces (Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, and Tibet are not included) from 2003 to 2015 are used for analysis. The data on urban construction land supply area and land transfer income are from the "China Land and Resources Statistical Yearbook (2004–2016)". The data on the number of employees in environmental protection agencies are from the "China Environmental Yearbook (2004–2016)". Other data are from the provincial annual database on the website of the "National Bureau of Statistics of China". The descriptive statistics of the variables are shown in Table 2.



The spatiotemporal evolution of urban construction land supply and environmental decentralization is plotted in Figure 2. *Land* **2023**, *12*, x FOR PEER REVIEW 8 of 19

**Figure 2.** Temporal and spatial evolution of urban construction land supply and environmental decentralization. **Figure 2.** Temporal and spatial evolution of urban construction land supply and environmental decentralization.

For fear of unrealistic regression results, it is necessary to check that the data is stable

estimation results are shown in Table 3. FE1 is the estimation result of adding no control variables, and FE2 and FE3 are the estimation results of gradually adding special control

**Variables FE1 FE2 FE3** 

Time-fixed effect Yes Yes Yes Province-fixed effect Yes Yes Yes

R2 0.403 0.546 0.600

ED 1.035 \*\*\*(4.498) 1.010 \*\*\*(4.967) 0.543 \*\*(2.533) FD **—** 0.394 \*\*\*(3.614) 0.360 \*\*\*(3.059) FAI **—** 1.427 \*\*\*(7.483) 0.849 \*\*\*(4.033) lnIPC **—** −0.062 (−1.334) −0.115 \*\*(−2.530) lnPGDP **— —** 1.196 \*\*\*(3.223) lnPGDP2 **— —** −0.327 \*\*\*(−3.184) lnPOP **— —** 0.415 (0.584) URL **— —** 0.176 (1.135) STI **— —** −4.661 \*\*\*(−2.955) FP **— —** 1.839 \*\*(2.207) Cons 7.242 \*\*\*(30.553) 6.350 \*\*\*(27.700) 7.729 (1.378)

variables and other control variables.

*4.1. Basic Estimation Results* 

**Table 3.** Basic estimation results.

**4. Empirical Results** 

Figure 2(a1,a2) shows that there is more construction land supply in the east than in the west, and the land supply in the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta is the largest. From 2003 to 2015, land supply in some provinces in the central and western regions of China increased. Figure 2(b1,b2) shows that the provinces closer to the capital (Beijing) have a higher degree of environmental decentralization. From 2003 to 2015, environmental decentralization in the central region decreased, while it marginally increased in the western region.

#### **4. Empirical Results**

#### *4.1. Basic Estimation Results*

For fear of unrealistic regression results, it is necessary to check that the data is stable before regression. Since this paper uses short panel data, the LLC unit root test is used. The test results indicate that the data used for regression are all stationary. The basic estimation results are shown in Table 3. FE1 is the estimation result of adding no control variables, and FE2 and FE3 are the estimation results of gradually adding special control variables and other control variables.

**Table 3.** Basic estimation results.


Note: values in parentheses are *t* statistics; \*\*, and \*\*\* represent that the coefficients are significant at the levels of 5%, and 1%, respectively.

The regression results in Table 3 show that after adding all control variables, the coefficient of environmental decentralization is significant, at the level of 5%, which indicates that environmental decentralization increases the scale of construction land supply. The effect of fiscal decentralization is positive, at a 1% significance level, suggesting that the greater financial autonomy of local governments, the stronger the motivation to provide a great deal of construction land. The coefficient of fixed asset investment per unit of GDP is positive, at a 1% significance level, suggesting that the scale of construction land supply is expanding due to the competition of local governments to attract investment. The effect of industrial pollution control investment is negative, at a 5% significance level, indicating that environmental protection constraints limit the expansion of construction land supply. The coefficient of square per GDP is markedly negative, at the level of 1%, indicating that there is an inverted U-shaped Kuznets curve relationship between economic development and construction land supply. The scale of construction land supply first increases and then decreases with economic growth. The proportion of secondary and tertiary industries is significantly negative, at the level of 1%, indicating that industrial structure upgrading can reduce construction land supply. The effect of local government financial pressure on land supply is markedly positive, at the level of 5%, indicating that the greater financial pressure, the more construction land supply. Population size and land urbanization have a positive influence on construction land supply, but they are not significant enough.

#### *4.2. Robustness Test*

To make the regression results more robust and reliable, the explained and explanatory variables are replaced, and the estimation method is changed. The robustness test results are shown in Table 4. In Table 4, FE4 is the regression result of replacing the explained variable with land transfer income (LTI). FE5 is the regression result of replacing the explanatory variable by environmental decentralization with a lag of one period. In addition, the model may suffer from heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation, and the feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) method is used to mitigate these problems [37,77]. The third column in Table 4 are the regression results with FGLS. The main work of environmental management includes administration, supervision, and monitoring. Therefore, subdivided environmental decentralization can be used for robustness testing. FE6, FE7, and FE8 are the estimated results of environmental administrative decentralization, environmental supervision decentralization, and environmental monitoring decentralization, respectively.



Note: values in parentheses are *t* statistics; \*, \*\*, and \*\*\* represent that the coefficients are significant at the levels of 10%, 5%, and 1%, respectively.

Table 4 indicates that environmental decentralization has a remarkable positive influence on land transfer income. The impacts of fiscal decentralization and competition for attracting investment on land transfer income are also significantly positive. The impact of environmental decentralization lagging one period on land supply is significant, at a level of 1%, indicating that the current land supply is affected by environmental decentralization in the previous period. The regression results with FGLS are not much different from the basic estimation. From the perspective of subdivided environmental decentralization, the influences of environmental administrative and monitoring decentralization are not significant, while the impact of environmental supervision decentralization is significant, at a level of 5%. The reason for this may be that administrative and monitoring decentralization increases the flexibility and positiveness of environmental management and helps to improve environmental performance. Supervision decentralization weakens the importance of environmental constraints and reduces environmental performance. Robustness test results are consistent with basic estimation results. It can be considered that the impact of environmental decentralization on urban construction land supply is stable.
