Speaker:  Zhang Qinghua, Peking University This talk delves into the impact of within-city administrative border adjustments on individual firm productivity and local economic development. Employing a unique quasi-natural experiment conducted in China since the 1990s, the empirical analysis reveals that district border adjustments have a significant positive effect on the TFP of manufacturing firms in the […]

Speaker:  Margaret Hillenbrand, Professor of Modern Chinese Literature and Culture; Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford University On the evening of November 18th, 2017, a blaze broke out in a two-story building in Xinjian urban village, just outside Beijing’s sixth ring road. At least 19 people, including 8 children, died in the flames. Using fire safety […]

Speaker:  Cole Roskam, Professor of Architectural History, Department of Architecture, University of Hong Kong Beginning in the 1970s and intensifying during the 1980s, the People’s Republic of China initiated international scholarly exchange programs with numerous countries at a range of levels and scales within Chinese society. These interactions were intended to facilitate knowledge transfer, particularly […]

Speaker:  Zhu Fangsheng, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Duke Kunshan University This talk will trace the origins and consequences of how contemporary Chinese cities govern public school admissions. School districts became the central device in public school admissions in China, despite their absence of fiscal or administrative foundations. I argue that cities repurposed school districts to […]

Speaker:  Isabella Jackson, Assistant Professor in Chinese History, Trinity College Dublin The Shanghai International Settlement was the site of key developments of the Republican period: economic growth, rising Chinese nationalism, and the Sino-Japanese conflict. Managed by the Shanghai Municipal Council (SMC, 1854–1943), it was beyond the control of both the Chinese and the foreign imperial […]

Speaker:  Zhang Guanchi, Vermont Law and Graduate School How has the rescaling of the city territories interacted with China’s political and economic transformation? During the country’s rapid industrialization and urbanization, Chinese cities have exhibited a relatively low degree of territorial fragmentation. This study examines the institutional experiments that have reclassified, redivided, and recombined local government territory in […]

Speakers: Huang Binling & Yuan Zhenyu, Shenzhen Sketch Landscape Design More information coming soon. 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 University Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies. Presented via Zoom Meeting.Meeting link: https://mit.zoom.us/j/93343229272 Venue

Speakers: Zhang Lei, Renmin UniversityProfessional planning in China has changed over the past four decades, shifting from a focus on market-oriented reforms to a focus on the environment and people-centered practice. This lecture will discuss these changes at three different scales. First, what has changed along with the transition in the urban planning system?  Second, I examine […]

Speakers: Liu Zheng, Associate Professor of Urban Planning, South China University of Technology Greenways are linear green corridors that are planned, designed, and managed for multi-use purposes. The introduction of the greenway concept to China, particularly from the American context, can be traced back to the 1990s. However, widespread development of greenways in China only began […]

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 […]