Before and beyond the rural rent gap: Brokered legibility and authorised asset value in China’s rural revitalisation

This commentary extends Phillips and Smith's comparative agenda for rural gentrification by putting it in dialogue with Birch and Ward's account of assetization. We argue that rural gentrification and assetization require attention to a prior institutional passage: the conversion of ambiguous rural resources into authorised objects of operation. Drawing on China's rural revitalisation, we call this process brokered legibility. The concept identifies a legibility gap between potential value and value that can be contracted, funded, audited, governed and publicly defended. By foregrounding quasi-state intermediaries and delegated operation, the commentary shifts analysis from value capture alone to the contested authorisation of rural asset value, including the de-authorisation of alternative rural futures.