Land Value Revitalization in Urban Renewal: Institutional Logic, Practice Models and Optimization Paths from China’s First-Tier Cities

Urban renewal is essentially a process of redefining land property rights, restructuring land use functions and redistributing land value increment, which is of great significance for improving the efficiency of land resource allocation and realizing sustainable land management. This study investigates the urban renewal practice of 21 pilot cities in China, and focuses on the policy frameworks, implementation models and financing mechanisms of urban renewal in four first-tier cities, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, through comparative analysis of policy documents and typical case studies. The results show that: (1) the current system for revitalizing land value through urban renewal remains exploratory in China, and the top-level design of land-related systems requires improvement; (2) there are obvious differences in land value distribution mechanisms under different renewal models, and the multi-stakeholder collaborative value sharing mechanism is insufficient; (3) the single financing model leads to blocked land value realization paths, and it is difficult to balance investment and return. Based on the findings, this study proposes targeted optimization paths for sustainable land value revitalization in urban renewal, which provides empirical evidence for land policy innovation and land resource value realization.