How does the effect of urban growth management change over time and across urban land uses? Evidence from China’s construction land quotas

While urban growth management has shown varying degrees of success in curbing urban land expansion, their effects over time and across urban land uses remain largely unexplored. We used nationwide longitudinal data and difference-in-difference models to assess the effect of construction land quotas on changes in residential, industrial, commercial, public service, and aggregate land uses in 274 Chinese cities between 2010 and 2019. Results show that more stringent quotas were initially effective in containing urban land expansion but lost their effectiveness later. Over the entire period, however, the quotas had no significant effect. Such ineffective quota led to a higher percentage of residential land at the expense of industrial land, but unaffected commercial and public service land. Our findings highlight that these effects were driven by strong revenue incentives favoring profitable residential construction. This underscores the crucial importance of considering the roles various urban land uses play in local revenue and economic development when enforcing urban growth management.