The Features and Causes of Spatial Planning Conflicts in China: Taking Urban Planning and Land-Use Planning as Examples

The conflicts in spatial planning are the main reason that restricts the sustainable development of land use in China, and it is also the main barrier to the building of “Territorial Spatial Planning System”. This study analyzes the conflicts between urban planning and land-use planning from the three dimensions of construction land, basic farmland and ecological land based on a land-use transition matrix with the central urban area of Liupanshui City, Guizhou Province as a case region, and analyzes the causes of spatial planning conflicts from the perspectives of the central and local governments in terms of their preferences and interactive relationships. The main conclusions of this paper are as follows. (1) Urban planning and land-use planning have comprehensive conflicts with each other in terms of the construction land, basic farmland and ecological land, i.e. the scale of construction land in urban planning is 154% of that in land-use planning, and the scale of basic farmland in urban planning is 88.56% of that in land-use planning. (2) Central and local governments are the two main stakeholders of spatial planning, and they have different preferences for the utilization of spatial resources at prefecture-level cities. The central government is concerned about food security, and therefore, pays more attention to the protection of cultivated land, while the local governments focus on economic benefits and the ecological environment, and therefore, pay more attention to construction and ecological lands. (3) The urban planning system is a bottom-up design system, which determines that urban planning mainly reflects the preferences of local governments, while the land-use planning system is a top-down design system, which determines that land-use planning mainly reflects the central government’s preferences. The policy implication of this study is that in order to manage spatial planning conflicts, it is necessary to manage the conflicts of interest among stakeholders.