Regulatory effect of China’s city hierarchy on urban redevelopment

Urban redevelopment has been widely implemented to address social, economic and environmental challenges. However, the geography of urban redevelopment, its underlying mechanisms and driving forces remain insufficiently understood, both theoretically and across different metropolitan scales. Here, to fill this gap, we analyze state-owned land transactions between 2012 and 2022 across 326 Chinese cities. We find that China’s city hierarchy exerts a regulatory effect on urban redevelopment. Higher-ranked cities tend to prioritize government regulation over market forces, whereas lower-ranked cities rely more on market-oriented approaches, and this divergence explains varying redevelopment patterns across city hierarchies. Our findings also reflect a shift toward top–down urban governance aligned with central-government policy, with higher-tier cities leading in implementing diverse redevelopment practices to achieve economic and non-economic goals. This study advances our understanding of administrative power in urban governance and offers insights for developing tailored strategies across different city hierarchies.