Quality of life of urban development displaced farmers in China

About four-million farmers are affected by land expropriation in China, annually. Local authorities acquire the land for urban development projects and relocate the farmers in high rise apartments. Some literatures suggest... [ view full abstract ]

About four-million farmers are affected by land expropriation in China, annually. Local authorities acquire the land for urban development projects and relocate the farmers in high rise apartments. Some literatures suggest that the unskilled farmers lose their farm job, social connections, and live isolated in tall apartments, and others view that the farmers benefit from the relocation. This research surveyed and examined the social capital (bonding bridging and institutional capital) of displaced farmers in Suzhou, China and compared them with the downtown poor to see how seriously the urban development displaced farmers were affected by the land acquisition policy. This research found that the displaced farmers were less happy than the downtown poor. Compared to the downtown poor, they had less income, low access to job, fewer social ties outside their community and had low trust on the local government. However, both the groups were happy with the quality of housing and the access to public transportation. This implies that local governments and policymakers should pay more attention on gaining trust of the displaced farmers and enhancing displaced farmers’ happiness, access to job, income, and bridging social connections outside their communities.