The relationship between the state and informal land development in Global South metropolises has yet not received much attention in urban studies. Concerning that knowledge gap, this paper investigates how the state regulates and inspects irregular and clandestine land subdivisions in the Metropolitan Region of Belo Horizonte (MRBH). A mixed-methods approach, focused on the inner workings of the land development control policy led by the MRBH Agency between 2009 and 2018, provides new evidence of the relationships between inspectors, developers, and prosecutors, among other actors. By delving deep into the intricate nexus between a changing regulatory landscape and the bureaucratic, street-level, and everyday enforcement practices by officials, the paper reveals how land development control, directly and indirectly, shapes informal land development in the MRBH. Particularly, it sheds light on how land development control unrolls through a contradictory combination of overregulation on one side and tolerance on the other. In light of this, I argue that, as land development control evolves without effectively tackling the land question and the structural drivers of informality, the state becomes paradoxically entangled in the production of the same forms of informality it is expected to curb. Therefore, land development control is better understood as a fragile and ambivalent state compromise between the need to regulate urban expansion and market-driven informal urbanisation. By creating opportunities for rent extraction and capital accumulation which are explored by informal land developers, the state has been crucial for property-led informal urbanisation in metropolitan Brazil.

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国家的非正规性：过度监管和宽容如何影响巴西大都市的非正规土地开发

全球南方大都市的国家与非正规土地开发之间的关系尚未在城市研究中受到太多关注。关于这一知识差距，本文研究了国家如何监管和检查贝洛奥里藏特大都市区（MRBH）的不规则和秘密土地分割。混合方法方法侧重于 2009 年至 2018 年间 MRBH 机构主导的土地开发控制政策的内部运作，为检查员、开发商和检察官以及其他参与者之间的关系提供了新的证据。通过深入研究不断变化的监管环境与官员的官僚、街道层面和日常执法实践之间错综复杂的关系，本文揭示了土地开发控制如何直接和间接地塑造 MRBH 的非正式土地开发。特别是，它揭示了土地开发控制如何通过一方面过度监管和另一方面宽容的矛盾结合来展开。有鉴于此，我认为，随着土地开发控制的发展，而没有有效解决土地问题和非正规性的结构性驱动因素，国家就会自相矛盾地卷入其本应遏制的相同形式的非正规性的生产中。因此，土地开发控制可以更好地理解为国家在监管城市扩张的需要和市场驱动的非正规城市化之间的脆弱和矛盾的妥协。通过为非正规土地开发商探索的租金提取和资本积累创造机会，国家对于巴西大都市以房地产为主导的非正规城市化至关重要。