Speakers: Sarah Chang, Assistant Professor of History, Miami UniversityThis presentation examines the relationship between urban renewal projects and SOE closures from the late 1990s to today. It uses published government and factory documents, oral history, and ethnography to explore how Chengdu’s urbanizing projects after the 2000s redefined the purpose of urban space, ejected industrial communities from […]

Speakers:  Liu Zhi, Peking University-Lincoln InstituteOver the last few years, the Chinese government has actively promoted urban regeneration action across the country. However, many projects are not justified by demand and struggle to attract investment. Others lack rigorous feasibility studies and economic assessments, posing significant risk of inefficient or wasteful investment. Behind this phenomenon is what […]

Speakers:   Philipp Demgenski, Institute of Anthropology, Department of Sociology, Zhejiang UniversityUnder current Chinese leadership, inner-city redevelopment has shifted from a “demolish and rebuild” (da chai da jian) model to prioritizing heritage preservation (baohu) and “subtle redevelopment” (wei gaizao), with policies prohibiting violent evictions, requiring public interest justification, and promoting transparency in housing expropriation. Drawing on […]

Speaker: Bruce Pang, Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) Greater China For the past three decades, the real estate sector has been a cornerstone of China’s economic growth, social development, and urbanization. Commercial real estate, in particular, has thrived due to vigorous domestic growth and seamless integration into the global marketplace, resulting in a mature, diverse, and thriving […]

Speaker:  Koji Hirata, Monash University This presentation examines the city of Anshan in Liaoning Province as a case study to explore the interactions between large state-owned enterprises and local governments in Mao-era China. Anshan was home to China's largest steel enterprise at the time, Anshan Iron and Steel Works (Angang). Although Angang was primarily controlled […]

Speaker:  Amy Zhang, New York University After four decades of reform and development, China is confronting a domestic waste crisis. Starting in the early 2000s, Chinese policymakers came to see waste management as an object of environmental governance central to the creation of “modern” cities. China’s cities started experiments with the circular economy, in which […]

Speaker:  Zhao Yawei, University of ManchesterThis presentation explores the intersection of migration studies and urban studies, focusing on the case of Dali, a small city that has experienced urban transformations due to lifestyle migration. During the past decade, newcomers have flocked to this city, some of whom called it Dalifornia as its atmosphere reminds them […]

Speaker:   Samantha Vortherms, University of California, Irvine In Manipulating Authoritarian Citizenship, Samantha Vortherms examines the institutions constructing authoritarian citizenship in the crucial case of China—where internal citizenship regimes control who can and cannot become a local citizen through the household registration system (hukou). She highlights how autocrats use internal citizenship regimes to create particularistic membership in citizenship, […]

Speaker: Qiao Shitong, Professor of Law and Ken Young-Gak Yun and Jinah Park Yun Research Scholar, Duke University Based on six-year fieldwork across China including over 200 in-depth interviews, this book provides an ethnographic account of how hundreds of millions of Chinese homeowners practice democracy in and beyond their condominium complexes. Using interviews, survey data, and […]

Speaker: Cecilia Chu, Associate Professor in Architecture, The Chinese University of Hong Kong This talk will explore three central aspects of urban development in colonial Hong Kong: the advent of modern planning closely entwined with early British segregation policies; the role of property investment in the shaping of building forms; and the emergence of a […]

Speaker:  Mark Baker, University of Manchester This event series is sponsored by the MIT Sustainable Urbanization Lab, the University of British Columbia’s School of Community and Regional Planning, and the Harvard Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies. Zoom Meeting Link: https://mit.zoom.us/j/97147498753 Venue

Speaker: Claudia Huang, California State University, Long Beach The current generational cohort of Chinese retirees have gotten a tough bargain in many ways. Because the one-child policy created an upside-down population pyramid, the customary practice of aging at home under the care of an adult child is becoming increasingly untenable. At the same time, the […]