Abstract
It is widely accepted that one of the challenges facing China's rapid urbanization is land urbanization is faster than population urbanization. During the process of land urbanization, there are a large number of rural areas have been converted into urban land use for urban construction, which has resulted in a large number of landless farmers. Thus, the government tried to solve the problem of resettlement of land-lost farmers by building concentrated residential communities in rural areas, and this housing policy has become the key spatial strategy for urban-rural integration development. However, the various number of farmers lived in concentrated settlements facing many new situations and dilemmas, and insufficient resettlement policies and spatial planning caused many problems of economic, social, and psychological. Specifically, some landless farmers are facing the change of identity from rural farmers to urban citizens. Furthermore, the transfer of living space from scattered village fields to new residential communities, and the lifestyle change from a self-sufficient rural life to a comprehensive and diversified urban life. Both local government and scholars also suspected the mode of large-scale centralized resettlement is appropriated. Consequently, this research would employ a case of Suzhou, since there are 1.1 million farmers in Suzhou are transformed into citizens in resettlement policies. This research is mainly reliant on fieldwork and observation of 26 Resettlement Communities. We particular interest in the development of this policy, then, to analyze and summary some institutional problems during the resettlement process. Finally, we attempt to draw some suggestions on how to achieve the "sustainable livelihood" of urban-rural integration development for future housing policy to farmers, which required spatial planning and design of residential community for farmers should take account of the notion of spatial justice.
