The new mode for promoting the redevelopment of urban villages in China: A research on the behavior of stakeholders

Abstract

Currently, the redevelopment of urban villages in China is facing increasingly severe challenges. Industry-oriented Urban Village Redevelopment Projects (IUVRP) represent a potentially enormous new development mode, requiring timely research into IUVRP operation and the behaviors of stakeholders involved. Employing evolutionary game theory and complex network theory, this study assesses behaviors of key stakeholders: the local government, enterprises, and village collectives. Results show the following: (a) There are three stable strategy sets, (0, 0, 0), (0, 0, 1), and (1, 0, 1), with (1, 0, 1) as the Pareto optimal strategy of {local government supervises, enterprises do not act opportunistically, village collectives cooperate positively}. (b) Enterprises exhibit a propensity for choosing not to act opportunistically. Enhancing the constraint of the local government and reducing cooperation costs of village collectives are vital. (c) IUVRP is suitable for urban villages with a certain scale. Subsidies and income positively influence villagers' participation. Relocation costs, hitchhike benefits, and reputation loss are negatively correlated with villagers' willingness to participate. Increasing penalties is more conducive to fostering villagers’ willingness to participate in IUVRP than setting rewards. This study provides a clear summary of the mode of the emerging IUVRP and conducts a progressive analysis on behaviors of stakeholders, offering a new analytical framework for project behavioral research of stakeholders.