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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20240416T083000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20240416T100000
DTSTAMP:20260719T162945
CREATED:20240123T162508Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240329T122143Z
UID:35131-1713256200-1713261600@fairbank.fas.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Urban China Lecture Series featuring Zhu Fangsheng - Families\, Schools\, and Cities
DESCRIPTION:Zoom meeting link\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSpeaker:  Zhu Fangsheng\, Assistant Professor of Sociology\, Duke Kunshan University \n\n\n\nThis 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 manage rising perceived injustices in informal processes by which parents were choosing schools\, and that such repurposing of school districts only succeeded with the arrival of big data infrastructure in the early 2010s. The successful repurposing of school districts reconfigured urban education governance. \n\n\n\nComparing across time periods\, I find that formal procedures reduced perceived injustices while also increasing collective action. Comparing across families\, I find that the formal procedures catalyzed different education migration strategies and destinations\, dependent on family resources. Comparing across urban districts within the same city\, I report unequal burdens of school provision between urban center and urban fringe districts. Altogether\, these findings demonstrate that formal procedures addressed perceived injustices but not substantive inequalities in urban education governance.  \n\n\n\nFangsheng Zhu studies policies\, organizations\, and technologies in education. His ongoing projects evolve around two research questions. First\, why has education in China remained unequal and intensive? Second\, what explains the rise and fall of China’s EdTech industry? Fangsheng is currently an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Duke Kunshan University. \n\n\n\nZoom Meeting Link: https://mit.zoom.us/j/92743598127 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nVenue
URL:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/events/urban-china-lecture-series-featuring-zhu-fangsheng/
LOCATION:Presented via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Urban China Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Zhu-Fangsheng.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20240430T083000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20240430T100000
DTSTAMP:20260719T162945
CREATED:20240123T162910Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240409T161732Z
UID:35134-1714465800-1714471200@fairbank.fas.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Urban China Lecture Series featuring Isabella Jackson - Shaping Modern Shanghai: Colonialism in China’s Global City
DESCRIPTION:Zoom meeting link\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSpeaker:  Isabella Jackson\, Assistant Professor in Chinese History\, Trinity College Dublin \n\n\n\nThe 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 governments. In this paper\, Jackson defines Shanghai’s unique\, hybrid form of colonial urban governance as transnational colonialism. The SMC was both colonial in its structures and subject to colonial influence\, especially from the British Empire\, yet autonomous in its activities and transnational in its personnel. Through a study of how this unique body functioned on the local\, national\, and international stages\, the Council’s impact on the daily lives of the city’s residents and its contribution to the conflicts of the period are revealed. The implications go beyond Shanghai to encompass modern Chinese history more broadly and wider colonial history. \n\n\n\nDr. Isabella Jackson is Assistant Professor in Chinese History at Trinity College Dublin\, Ireland. She lectured at the Universities of Oxford and Aberdeen before moving to Dublin in 2015. Jackson is the author of Shaping Modern Shanghai: Colonialism in China’s Global City (Cambridge University Press\, 2018) and co-editor\, with Robert Bickers\, of Treaty Ports in Modern China: Law\, Land and Power (Routledge\, 2016). She is Principal Investigator of an Irish Research Council Laureate Award on Chinese Childhood in the Twentieth Century. \n\n\n\nZoom Meeting Link: https://mit.zoom.us/j/92743598127 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nVenue
URL:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/events/urban-china-lecture-series-featuring-isabella-jackson/
LOCATION:Presented via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Urban China Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Isabella-Jackson.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20240507T083000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20240507T100000
DTSTAMP:20260719T162945
CREATED:20240123T163217Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240425T165000Z
UID:35137-1715070600-1715076000@fairbank.fas.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Urban China Lecture Series featuring Zhang Guanchi - Rightscaling Cities: The Political Economy of City Territory in China
DESCRIPTION:Zoom meeting link\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSpeaker:  Zhang Guanchi\, Vermont Law and Graduate School \n\n\n\nHow 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 the People’s Republic of China since 1949. I argue that the constant rescaling of cities is a distinctive and underestimated mechanism in the Chinese state’s steering of economic transformation. \n\n\n\nThrough extensive fieldwork and archival research\, I find that the question of city scale has been integral to China’s economic modernization for the last seven decades. The constant tensions between the metropolitan center and periphery have driven various territorial reforms\, both before and after the market-oriented reform. These reforms have profoundly shaped the state’s economic development projects. I argue that\, over time\, metropolitan governments emerge as the primary scale for inter-local competition and coordination. While this particular territorial choice has contributed to China’s economic rise\, its entrenchment has ramifications for the country’s current challenges. \n\n\n\nGuanchi Zhang is an Assistant Professor of Law at Vermont Law and Graduate School. His research interests lie at the intersection of law\, urban studies\, and political economy. His current research projects focus on two primary areas of inquiry: the rise and fall of efforts to rightscale cities in China and the United States\, and the role of housing and zoning laws in the context of growing geographic disparities. \n\n\n\nZoom Meeting Link: https://mit.zoom.us/j/92743598127 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nVenue
URL:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/events/urban-china-lecture-series-featuring-zhang-guanchi/
LOCATION:Presented via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Urban China Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Guanchi-Zhang-1-scaled-1-e1692386067129.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20240924T203000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20240924T220000
DTSTAMP:20260719T162945
CREATED:20240913T161934Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240913T163137Z
UID:37368-1727209800-1727215200@fairbank.fas.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Urban China Lecture Series featuring Huang Binling & Yuan Zhenyu
DESCRIPTION:zoom meeting link\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSpeakers: Huang Binling & Yuan Zhenyu\, Shenzhen Sketch Landscape Design \n\n\n\nMore information coming soon. \n\n\n\nThis 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. \n\n\n\nPresented via Zoom Meeting.Meeting link: https://mit.zoom.us/j/93343229272 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nVenue
URL:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/events/urban-china-lecture-series-featuring-huang-binling-yuan-zhenyu/
LOCATION:Presented via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Urban China Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/urban-china.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20241015T203000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20241015T220000
DTSTAMP:20260719T162945
CREATED:20240913T162147Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241007T155642Z
UID:37371-1729024200-1729029600@fairbank.fas.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Urban China Lecture Series featuring Zhang Lei - Urban Planning and Planners in China: Continuity and Change
DESCRIPTION:zoom meeting link\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSpeakers: 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 the role local leaders play in drafting master plans\, showing that the degree of emphasis on environmental issues varies with the personal characteristics of party secretaries and mayors. I find that the education and age of local leaders have a significant effect on environmental concerns in master plans\, while their work experience and state mandate do not. Third\, I examine the role community planners have played in the case of Beijing\, showing that they play hybrid roles as technical experts\, advocates and communicators in their daily practice\, yet they exhibit a limited understanding of their role as communicative planners and how to effectively involve the public in the planning process. \n\n\n\nLei Zhang is a Professor of Urban Planning in the School of Public Administration and Policy at Renmin University of China. He completed his Ph.D. in planning at the University of Tokyo. He serves on several academic committees within the Urban Planning Society of China\, including as the secretary-general of the Planning Implementation Committee.  His research focuses on explaining institutional diversity and evolution in urban planning and development control\, and in particular\, the changing role of political power and public involvement in plans and planning in China and other East Asian Countries. He also explores the role of informal institutions in shaping place and space in China’s mega-cities. \n\n\n\nThis 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. \n\n\n\nPresented via Zoom Meeting.Meeting link: https://mit.zoom.us/j/93343229272 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nVenue
URL:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/events/urban-china-lecture-series-featuring-zhang-lei/
LOCATION:Presented via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Urban China Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/urban-china.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20241112T203000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20241112T220000
DTSTAMP:20260719T162945
CREATED:20240913T162622Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241031T133918Z
UID:37377-1731443400-1731448800@fairbank.fas.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Urban China Lecture Series featuring Liu Zheng — Chinese Greenways: Innovative Planning\, Governance\, and Urbanism
DESCRIPTION:zoom meeting link\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSpeakers: Liu Zheng\, Associate Professor of Urban Planning\, South China University of Technology \n\n\n\nGreenways 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 after 2010\, when Guangdong Province initiated its first regional greenway plan. This lecture will first explore how this American-based concept led to a political campaign in Guangdong. The second part will elaborate on the challenges of legitimizing greenway objectives and achieving institutional arrangements within the unique bureaucratic framework of Chinese regional governance. Following this\, the discussion will address post-campaign improvement strategies in Guangdong and other regions\, highlighting innovative planning practices that are commonly present yet often overlooked in China. \n\n\n\nThis 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. \n\n\n\nPresented via Zoom Meeting.Meeting link: https://mit.zoom.us/j/93343229272 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nVenue
URL:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/events/urban-china-lecture-series-featuring-liu-zheng/
LOCATION:Presented via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Urban China Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/PastedGraphic-1-e1730381948585.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20241126T203000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20241126T220000
DTSTAMP:20260719T162945
CREATED:20240913T162456Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241107T170605Z
UID:37375-1732653000-1732658400@fairbank.fas.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Urban China Lecture Series featuring Sarah Chang — From Xiagang (layoffs)to the New Silk Road: SOE Reform and Urban Renewal in Southwestern China from the 1990s to the Present
DESCRIPTION:zoom meeting link\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSpeakers: 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 the urban core\, and imagined new zones of development in response to the Belt and Road Initiative. The talk analyzes how the Party engaged in adaptive strategies of governance and borrowed from Mao-era political sentiments to induce industrial communities’ compliance with changing urban and industrial policies. Connecting Mao-era urban and industrial drives with the present\, the presentation observes how Chengdu is transforming a socialist-era industrial district into a free trade zone and international hub for transportation and logistics\, part of China’s New Silk Road. \n\n\n\nThis 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. \n\n\n\nPresented via Zoom Meeting.Meeting link: https://mit.zoom.us/j/93343229272 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nVenue
URL:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/events/urban-china-lecture-series-featuring-sarah-chang/
LOCATION:Presented via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Urban China Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/sarah-chang.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20241203T203000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20241203T220000
DTSTAMP:20260719T162945
CREATED:20240913T162849Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241202T151143Z
UID:37381-1733257800-1733263200@fairbank.fas.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Urban China Lecture Series featuring Liu Zhi — What Drives Urban Regeneration Action in China Today?
DESCRIPTION:zoom meeting link\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSpeakers:  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 I call “investment impulse\,” a bureaucratic incentive that uses public investment not to meet demand in a cost-effective way\, but to increase the size of local GDP. What drives the investment impulse? Placing the urban regeneration action into a broad context of China’s public capital investment behavior\, I argue that the investment impulse is an unintended consequence of China’s political and economic management system and can be avoided with policy reform measures. \n\n\n\nZhi Liu is Senior Research Fellow and Executive Director of China and Asia Program\, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy\, and Director\, Peking University–Lincoln Institute Center for Urban Development and Land Policy. His research interests are mainly in land and housing policy\, infrastructure economics and policy\, municipal finance\, and urban and regional planning. Before joining Lincoln Institute in 2013\, he was a lead infrastructure specialist at the World Bank\, with years of operational experience in the infrastructure and urban sectors. He is co-editor of International Housing Market Experience and Implications for China (Routledge 2019) and Infrastructure Economic and Policy: International Perspectives (Lincoln Institute of Land Policy\, 2022). \n\n\n\nThis 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. \n\n\n\nPresented via Zoom Meeting.Meeting link: https://mit.zoom.us/j/93343229272 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nVenue
URL:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/events/urban-china-lecture-series-featuring-liu-zhi/
LOCATION:Presented via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Urban China Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Zhi-Liu.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20241210T203000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20241210T220000
DTSTAMP:20260719T162945
CREATED:20240913T162956Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241125T153238Z
UID:37383-1733862600-1733868000@fairbank.fas.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Urban China Lecture Series featuring  Philipp Demgenski — The Burden of the Past: Housing Expropriation and the Changing Priorities of Inner-City Redevelopment in Contemporary China
DESCRIPTION:zoom meeting link\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSpeakers:   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 long-term ethnographic fieldwork\, in this presentation\, I explore how these changes have played out at the micro level of urban society in the concrete negotiations over housing expropriation and compensation in the old\, former colonial town centre of Qingdao. I show that while these policies aim to enhance the “quality” of redevelopment and bolster government legitimacy\, they often fall short. Launching a housing expropriation and renewal scheme has\, I argue\, been much like opening a Pandora’s box in unleashing unresolved legacies and burdens of the past. Redevelopment announcements created expectations and triggered actions relative to compensation that the local government was unable to effectively address. This hints at the multifaceted challenges that China faces in reforming its redevelopment practices. \n\n\n\nPhilipp Demgenski is an Assistant Professor in Anthropology in the Department of Sociology at Zhejiang University. He holds a PhD in Anthropology from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research has been focusing on urban redevelopment and heritage politics in China as well as global heritage governance. His book “Seeking a Future for the Past: Space\, power\, and heritage in a Chinese city” was published in 2024 with Michigan University Press. He was previously a member of the “UNESCO Frictions” project at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales\, researching the implementation of the UNESCO 2003 Convention in China\, Brazil and Greece. \n\n\n\nThis 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. \n\n\n\nPresented via Zoom Meeting.Meeting link: https://mit.zoom.us/j/93343229272 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nVenue
URL:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/events/urban-china-lecture-series-featuring-philipp-demgenski/
LOCATION:Presented via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Urban China Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/urban-china.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250211T203000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250211T220000
DTSTAMP:20260719T162945
CREATED:20250130T141710Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250130T204506Z
UID:39195-1739305800-1739311200@fairbank.fas.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Urban China Lecture Series Featuring Bruce Pang — China's Property Market: Navigating the Evolving Landscape
DESCRIPTION:Zoom meeting link\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSpeaker: Bruce Pang\, Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) Greater China \n\n\n\nFor 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 sector. As China pledges to shift its long-accustomed investment-driven growth model to a “quality over quantity” paradigm\, the property market is undergoing significant transformations\, with slower growth and disparities among sub-sectors.This lecture will explore these transformative dynamics and offer a forward-looking perspective on China’s real estate market\, including both the residential property sphere and key segments within the commercial property sector. By utilizing official data and JLL’s proprietary data\, we find that China’s property market serves as a proxy that can effectively reflect the country’s short-term cyclical headwinds and longer-term mega-trends. This includes China’s reshaped landscape in investment\, consumption\, financial\, and services sectors\, its urbanization and demographic outlook\, among others. We conclude that time and patience are still needed for China’s emerging industries and domestic consumption to regain growth momentum and offset the pressure on economic expansion\, especially as policymakers demonstrate a higher tolerance for slower growth and more focus on the domestic market.Bruce Pang is the Chief Economist and Head of Research at Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) Greater China. He also is a member of the Chief Economist Forum in China\, a Distinguished Senior Research Fellow at the National Institution for Finance and Development (NIFD)\, and a Research Fellow at the Center for Housing and Urban Development of Shanghai Jiao Tong University. In addition\, he holds adjunct faculty positions at the Chinese University of Hong Kong\, Fudan University\, Renmin University of China\, Sun Yat-sen University\, among others. Bruce holds a PhD degree in Economics from the University of Hong Kong as well as an MA from the University of Chicago and an MSc from HKUST. He has authored papers in peer-reviewed academic journals and industry journals\, focusing on macroeconomics\, policy analysis\, real estate economics\, financial markets\, and asset allocation strategies. \n\n\n\nWe would like to thank 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 for supporting this event. Please subscribe to our mailing list if you’d like to receive e-mail notifications: http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/urbanchinaseminar. \n\n\n\nJoin Zoom Meeting: https://mit.zoom.us/j/97147498753 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nVenue
URL:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/events/urban-china-lecture-series-featuring-bruce-pang/
LOCATION:Presented via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Urban China Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bruce-pang-1.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250218T203000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250218T220000
DTSTAMP:20260719T162945
CREATED:20250130T141834Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250130T204557Z
UID:39197-1739910600-1739916000@fairbank.fas.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Urban China Lecture Series Featuring Koji Hirata — Local Governments and Central SOEs: Historical Evidence from Angang
DESCRIPTION:Zoom meeting link\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSpeaker:  Koji Hirata\, Monash University \n\n\n\nThis 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 by the central government\, the Chinese Communist Party Anshan City Committee and the Anshan City Government still exerted a degree of influence over its operations. \n\n\n\nThe relationship between Angang and city authorities of Anshan underwent changes throughout the Mao era. During the First Five-Year Plan (1953-57)\, China adopted a centralized governance model based on the Soviet example\, and Angang often disregarded city government policies\, such as urban planning. However\, during the Great Leap Forward and the early Cultural Revolution\, Mao Zedong decentralized economic decision-making\, granting greater power to local governments. This shift significantly increased the influence of the city’s CCP committee and government on Angang—a transformation reflected in the so-called “Angang Constitution\,” authored by the CCP Anshan City Committee and praised by Chairman Mao.The study highlights the complexities of Maoist China’s planned economy\, demonstrating the dynamic interactions between industrial and urban authorities. These interactions reflected competing visions within the CCP leadership on how China should be governed. \n\n\n\nKoji Hirata is a Senior Research Fellow (Senior Lecturer) in History at Monash University in Australia. He earned his Ph.D. in history at Stanford University. Before joining Monash\, he was a Research Fellow (JRF) at Emmanuel College\, University of Cambridge. His research focuses on modern China\, Japan\, and Russia/Soviet Union with broader implications for the global history of capitalism and socialism. His new book\, Making Mao’s Steelworks: Industrial Manchuria and the Transnational Origins of Chinese Socialism\, was recently published by Cambridge University Press in December 2024. He is currently working on a new book project about Mao-era China’s foreign economic relations. \n\n\n\nWe would like to thank 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 for supporting this event. Please subscribe to our mailing list if you’d like to receive e-mail notifications: http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/urbanchinaseminar. \n\n\n\nJoin Zoom Meeting: https://mit.zoom.us/j/97147498753 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nVenue
URL:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/events/urban-china-lecture-series-featuring-koji-hirata/
LOCATION:Presented via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Urban China Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/urban-china.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250225T203000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250225T220000
DTSTAMP:20260719T162945
CREATED:20250130T142116Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250214T210051Z
UID:39199-1740515400-1740520800@fairbank.fas.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Urban China Lecture Series Featuring Amy Zhang - Circular Ecologies: Environmentalism and Waste Politics in Urban China
DESCRIPTION:Zoom meeting link\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSpeaker:  Amy Zhang\, New York University \n\n\n\nAfter 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 technology and new policy could convert all forms of waste back into resources. Based on long-term research in Guangzhou\, this talk details the implementation of technologies and infrastructures to modernize a mega-city’s waste management system. Waste’s transformation revealed uncomfortable truths about China’s mode of environmental governance: a preference for technology over labor\, the aestheticization of order\, and the expropriation of value in service of an ecological vision. Waste’s afterlives exhibited a propensity to draw together diverse matters and objects. The talk shows how in disputes and practices around waste\, diverse waste matter in transformation created temporary and emergent social and ecological interdependencies and gave rise to new political sentiments and actions across diverse urban dwellers.  \n\n\n\nAmy Zhang is a sociocultural anthropologist and political ecologist whose research investigates environment\, technology\, labor\, and urban life. Her first book Circular Ecologies: Environmentalism and Waste Politics in Urban China (Stanford University Press\, 2024) explores how waste infrastructures\, materials and their technical interventions ground and condition the forms\, possibilities and limits of China’s emerging urban environmental politics. Other writings appear in Cultural Anthropology\, Current Anthropology\, Science\, Technology and Human Values\, China Perspectives\, e-flux Architecture\, LIMN\, Made in China and Can Science and Technology save China? among others. She is assistant professor of Anthropology at New York University. \n\n\n\nZoom Meeting Link: https://mit.zoom.us/j/97147498753 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nVenue
URL:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/events/urban-china-lecture-series-featuring-amy-zhang/
LOCATION:Presented via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Urban China Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/urban-china.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250311T150000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250311T163000
DTSTAMP:20260719T162945
CREATED:20250130T142254Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250305T185314Z
UID:39201-1741705200-1741710600@fairbank.fas.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Urban China Lecture Series Featuring Zhao Yawei — Escaping to Dalifornia: Lifestyle Migration in Urban China
DESCRIPTION:Zoom meeting link\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSpeaker:  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 of California. The first part of the talk examines the relationship between lifestyle migration and urbanization through the lens of “extended urbanization.” The notion\, introduced by Henri Lefebvre and then developed by Neil Brenner and other urban theorists\, is used to unpack socio-spatial changes of Dali. I argue that extended urbanization has unfolded in a distinct mode that I call lifestyle-oriented urbanization\, in addition to tourism urbanization that is already happening in the city. At the local scale\, urban processes extend from cities to peri-urban areas\, while at the national scale\, urban processes extend from economically prominent cities like Beijing and Guangzhou to peripheral places like Dali. The second part of the talk zooms in on how lifestyle migrants have contributed to lifestyle-oriented urbanization in Dali by means of three forms of place-making: creative\, aesthetic\, and transgressive. Overall\, this presentation discusses how lifestyle migration sparks socio-spatial transformations in peripheral places that are often overlooked in urban studies and how these changes have\, in turn\, sustained lifestyle migration. \n\n\n\nYawei Zhao is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Human Geography at the University of Manchester. Her research focuses on digital technologies and infrastructures within the urban context\, and she is particularly interested in how peripheral places have been transformed by the fast-growing digital economy. Yawei also works on the intersection of lifestyle migration and urbanization. Her research has been funded by the British Academy\, IJURR Foundation\, and Mitacs Canada\, and it has appeared in Environment and Planning E\, Cities\, Geoforum\, Housing Studies\, and Urban Geography\, among others. \n\n\n\nThis 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. \n\n\n\nZoom Meeting Link: https://mit.zoom.us/j/97147498753 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nVenue
URL:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/events/urban-china-lecture-series-featuring-zhao-yawei/
LOCATION:Presented via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Urban China Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/yawei.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250401T203000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250401T220000
DTSTAMP:20260719T162945
CREATED:20250130T143048Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250313T161411Z
UID:39205-1743539400-1743544800@fairbank.fas.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Urban China Lecture Series Featuring  Samantha Vortherms — Manipulating Authoritarian Citizenship
DESCRIPTION:Zoom meeting link\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSpeaker:   Samantha Vortherms\, University of California\, Irvine \n\n\n\nIn 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\, creating a model of citizenship outside of the liberal democratic ideal. Vortherms shows how local governments explicitly manipulate local citizenship membership not only to ensure political security and stability\, but also\, crucially\, to advance economic development. This transition from subjecthood to citizenship also allows space for individual agency in the local naturalization decision—whether to change one’s hukou or not—that further creates variation in access to citizenship rights in China. \n\n\n\nSamantha Vortherms is an Assistant Professor at University of California\, Irvine’s Department of Political Science. She’s also a faculty affiliate at UCI’s Long U.S.-China Institute; Philosophy\, Political Science\, and Economic program; and a Non-resident Scholar at UC San Diego’s 21st Century China Center. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2017 and was a Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellow in Contemporary Asia at Stanford University’s APARC. From 2014-2016\, she was a Visiting Research Fellow at the National School of Development’s China Center for Health Economics Research at Peking University. \n\n\n\nThis 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. \n\n\n\nZoom Meeting Link: https://mit.zoom.us/j/97147498753 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nVenue
URL:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/events/urban-china-lecture-series-featuring-samantha-vortherms/
LOCATION:Presented via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Urban China Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/urban-china.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250408T203000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250408T220000
DTSTAMP:20260719T162945
CREATED:20250130T143136Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250307T172927Z
UID:39207-1744144200-1744149600@fairbank.fas.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Urban China Lecture Series Featuring Qiao Shitong — Neighborhood Democratization in Urban China
DESCRIPTION:Zoom meeting link\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSpeaker: Qiao Shitong\, Professor of Law and Ken Young-Gak Yun and Jinah Park Yun Research Scholar\, Duke University \n\n\n\nBased 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 a comprehensive examination of laws\, policies and judicial decisions\, this book also examines how the party-state in China responds to the risks and benefits brought by neighborhood democratization. Moreover\, this book provides a framework to analyze different approaches to the authoritarian dilemma facing neighborhood democratization which may increase the regime’s legitimacy and expose it to the challenge of independent organizations at the same time. Lastly\, this book identifies conditions under which neighborhood democratization can succeed. \n\n\n\nShitong Qiao is Professor of Law and Ken Young-Gak Yun and Jinah Park Yun Research Scholar at Duke University. He also taught property and comparative law at the University of Hong Kong and New York University and was Law and Public Affairs fellow at Princeton University. Professor Qiao employs mixed methods to explore the relationship between political power\, law\, and private ordering. He has published numerous articles in the top Chinese and US law journals and a prize-winning book about law and marketization\, Chinese Small Property: The Co-Evolution of Law and Social Norms (Cambridge University Press\, 2017). \n\n\n\nWe would like to thank 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 for supporting this event.  Please subscribe to our mailing list if you’d like to receive e-mail notifications: http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/urbanchinaseminar. \n\n\n\nZoom Meeting Link: https://mit.zoom.us/j/97147498753 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nVenue
URL:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/events/urban-china-lecture-series-featuring-qiao-shitong/
LOCATION:Presented via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Urban China Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/neighborhood-commons.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250415T203000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250415T220000
DTSTAMP:20260719T162945
CREATED:20250324T155316Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250324T155317Z
UID:39888-1744749000-1744754400@fairbank.fas.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Urban China Lecture Series Featuring Cecilia Chu — Building Colonial Hong Kong: The Production of Space in a Speculative City
DESCRIPTION:Zoom meeting link\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSpeaker: Cecilia Chu\, Associate Professor in Architecture\, The Chinese University of Hong Kong \n\n\n\nThis 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 distinct urban milieu in which different constituencies sought to claim a stake in a burgeoning colonial economy through housing speculation. Two historical periods will be revisited: the mid-1890s\, which witnessed the disastrous plague outbreak that prompted the territory’s first large-scale urban renewal project\, and the early 1920s\, when the opening of New Kowloon and intensified land speculation led to a series of ambitious planning schemes along racial lines. The intersections of economic interests and the politics of race have contributed to the forms and norms of the city and an evolving sense of local identity. Notably\, these discourses and policies have remained powerful frameworks for urban transformation in the post-colonial present. \n\n\n\nCecilia L. Chu is an Associate Professor and Director of the MPhil-PhD Programme in the School of Architecture at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Trained as an urban historian with a background in design and conservation\, her works focus on the social and cultural processes that shape the forms of built environments and their impacts on local communities. She is the author of the award-winning book\, Building Colonial Hong Kong: Speculative Development and Segregation in the City\, which received the 2023 Best Book in Non-North American Urban History Award from the Urban History Association and the 2024 International Planning History Society Book Prize. Her other book publications include The Speculative City: Emergent Forms and Norms of the Built Environment (2022) and Hong Kong Built Heritage (forthcoming 2025). \n\n\n\nWe would like to thank 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 for supporting this event. Please subscribe to our mailing list if you’d like to receive e-mail notifications: http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/urbanchinaseminar. \n\n\n\nZoom Meeting Link: https://mit.zoom.us/j/97147498753 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nVenue
URL:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/events/urban-china-lecture-series-featuring-cecilia-chu-building-colonial-hong-kong-the-production-of-space-in-a-speculative-city/
LOCATION:Presented via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Urban China Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/urban-china.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250422T150000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250422T163000
DTSTAMP:20260719T162945
CREATED:20250130T142439Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250415T162814Z
UID:39203-1745334000-1745339400@fairbank.fas.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Urban China Lecture Series Featuring Mark Baker — Pivot of China: Spatial Politicsand Inequality in Modern Zhengzhou
DESCRIPTION:Zoom meeting link\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSpeaker:  Mark Baker\, University of Manchester \n\n\n\nThis 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. \n\n\n\nZoom Meeting Link: https://mit.zoom.us/j/97147498753 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nVenue
URL:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/events/urban-china-lecture-series-featuring-mark-baker-2/
LOCATION:Presented via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Urban China Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/mark-baker.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250429T203000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250429T220000
DTSTAMP:20260719T162945
CREATED:20250130T143321Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250415T162133Z
UID:39211-1745958600-1745964000@fairbank.fas.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Urban China Lecture Series Featuring Claudia Huang — Play a day\, count a day: planning for old age in contemporary urban China
DESCRIPTION:Zoom meeting link\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSpeaker: Claudia Huang\, California State University\, Long Beach \n\n\n\nThe 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 social welfare programs that the government promised in exchange for their reproductive sacrifices never materialized\, leaving retirees to plan for old age on their own. Many older adults have responded to these policy reversals by focusing on leisure and enjoyment as much as possible– an attitude they call “play a day\, count a day.” The stories I share paint a portrait of life at the limits of affective governance\, showing that while the state can attempt to control life trajectories\, it cannot determine people’s attitudes about their own experiences. \n\n\n\nClaudia Huang is an anthropologist by training and an assistant professor of human development at California State University\, Long Beach. She conducts ethnographic research in Chengdu\, Sichuan\, where she examines the ways in which macro-level policies affect people’s intimate experiences of growing older. Her first book\, titled Dancing for their lives: the pursuit of meaningful aging in urban China was recently published with the series on global aging at Rutgers University Press. \n\n\n\nZoom Meeting Link: https://mit.zoom.us/j/97147498753 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nVenue
URL:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/events/urban-china-lecture-series-featuring-claudia-huang/
LOCATION:Presented via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Urban China Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/claudia-huang.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20251014T203000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20251014T223000
DTSTAMP:20260719T162945
CREATED:20251001T162533Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251001T162536Z
UID:42626-1760473800-1760481000@fairbank.fas.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Zhongjie Lin— New Town Utopias: Lessons from China’s 21st-Century Urban Experiments
DESCRIPTION:zoom meeting link\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSpeaker: Zhongjie Lin\, Benjamin Z. Lin Presidential Professor of Urban Design\, Weitzman School of Design\, University of PennsylvaniaAmid groundbreaking political reforms and the largest mass migration in human history\, China created over 3\,800 new towns to house its burgeoning urban population and sustain rapid economic growth. Driven by marketization\, global trade\, inter-city competition\, and an exponentially growing real estate industry\, this continuous urban expansion represents the most extensive urbanization initiative in history. Contemporary Chinese new towns have emerged as a national campaign to reimagine the Chinese city and reshape the global geo-economic landscape. This lecture examines four decades of Chinese urbanization through the lens of urbanism and utopianism. Case studies—including the Suzhou Industrial Park\, Shanghai’s One City and Nine Towns\, and prototypical eco-cities—illuminates fundamental issues of economic vitality\, cultural identity\, environmental sustainability\, and socio-spatial dynamics. Ultimately\, the lecture explores the complex interplay between space production and social transformation within the context of neoliberalism and globalization.Zhongjie Lin is Benjamin Z. Lin Presidential Professor of Urban Design at the University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design\, where he serves as Head of the Urban Design program and directs the Future Cities Initiative. An internationally renowned expert in urban planning and design\, Dr. Lin has published numerous books on Asian architecture and cities\, including Kenzo Tange and the Metabolist Movement: Urban Utopias of Modern Japan (2010/2023)\, Vertical Urbanism: Designing Compact Cities in China (2018)\, and Constructing Utopias: China’s New Town Movement in the 21st Century (2025). He was the recipient of the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship\, the Guggenheim Fellowship\, the Abe Fellowship\, and three Graham Foundation awards.We would like to thank 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 for supporting this event.  Please subscribe to our mailing list if you’d like to receive e-mail notifications: http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/urbanchinaseminar.Join Zoom Meeting: https://mit.zoom.us/j/98722032936 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nVenue
URL:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/events/zhongjie-lin-new-town-utopias-lessons-from-chinas-21st-century-urban-experiments/
LOCATION:Presented via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Urban China Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/zhongjie-lin.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260224T203000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260224T220000
DTSTAMP:20260719T162945
CREATED:20260204T193937Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260212T154041Z
UID:44225-1771965000-1771970400@fairbank.fas.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Urban China Lecture Series Featuring Song Nianshen -- Space\, State\, and Daily Life in a Manchurian City
DESCRIPTION:zoom meeting link\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSpeaker: Song Nianshen\, Tsinghua UniversityWhat can one neighborhood reveal about the making of a modern nation? This talk deciphers the unexpected significance of Xita\, a half-square-mile quarter in Shenyang\, in Northeast China. It shows that over nearly four centuries\, Xita has been shaped and reshaped by empire\, war\, migration\, and urban transformation. The history of this small area mirrors large-scale changes\, including and especially China’s metamorphosis from a multi-ethnic Eurasian empire to a postindustrial society. By studying how global and local forces play out in everyday spaces\, the talk reveals a perspective for understanding China’s past—not from the top down\, but through the streets and people who lived it. \n\n\n\nProfessor Nianshen Song is a historian at the Tsinghua Institute of Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences. His research and teaching focus on late imperial and modern East Asia\, with special interest in frontiers\, trans-regional networks and historical geography. His monographies in English include The Neighborhood: Space\, State\, and Daily Life in a Manchurian City (2025) and Making Borders in Modern East Asia: The Tumen River Demarcation\, 1881–1919 (2018). \n\n\n\nJoin Zoom Meeting Link: https://mit.zoom.us/j/97955535212 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nVenue
URL:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/events/urban-china-lecture-series-featuring-song-niansheng-space-state-and-daily-life-in-a-manchurian-city/
LOCATION:Presented via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Urban China Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/song-nansheng.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260310T203000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260310T220000
DTSTAMP:20260719T162945
CREATED:20260204T194113Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260204T194114Z
UID:44228-1773174600-1773180000@fairbank.fas.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Urban China Lecture Series Featuring Su Xiaobo -- State Venturism and the Financialization of Urban Development in China
DESCRIPTION:zoom meeting link\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSpeaker: Su Xiaobo\, University of Oregon \n\n\n\nFinancialization has become a central force to reshape urban development. This paper explores one specific mechanism of financialization—state-led venture capital (SVC)—to elucidate an emergent trend in which governments act as equity investors to support startups and scaleups. Such investments are not necessarily aimed at ownership\, but rather at fostering technological innovation and promoting urban development\, which gives rise to state venturism. China provides a particularly revealing case of state venturism: governments at multiple administrative levels have leveraged SVCs to support high-tech firms within their jurisdictions. The study case is Hefei\, China’s capital of state-led venture investment. Through equity investment\, municipal governments in China are forging new alliances with private investors and entrepreneurial actors—governing not via direct ownership of production assets\, but through equity participation and market-shaping investment vehicles. \n\n\n\nXiaobo Su is a professor of urban and regional development in the Department of Geography\, University of Oregon. Currently his research interest is in state-led venture investment and its role in urban innovation in China and the U.S.  \n\n\n\nThis event series is sponsored by the Harvard Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies\, the MIT Sustainable Urbanization Lab\, and the Australian Centre on China in the World. \n\n\n\nJoin Zoom Meeting Link: https://mit.zoom.us/j/97955535212 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nVenue
URL:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/events/urban-china-lecture-series-featuring-su-xiaobo-state-venturism-and-the-financialization-of-urban-development-in-china/
LOCATION:Presented via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Urban China Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/su-xiabo.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260331T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260331T103000
DTSTAMP:20260719T162945
CREATED:20260313T201959Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260313T202002Z
UID:44605-1774947600-1774953000@fairbank.fas.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Urban China Lecture featuring Chris Courtney — Defrosting the Deep History of Chinese Cold Chains
DESCRIPTION:Zoom Meeting link\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSpeaker: Chris Courtney\, Associate Professor of Modern Chinese History\, University of Durham\, UK.Cold chains are a vital component of modern cities. Most histories trace their origins to the advent of the ice trade in the nineteenth century. This paper argues that cold chains have been around a lot longer. In China\, they have been used to provision cities for around a thousand years. Later\, the British consciously emulated these Chinese infrastructural arrangements\, using them as the inspiration for their own cold chains. This paper continues by describing how industrial cold chains allowed treaty port foreigners in China to manufacture temperate lifestyles in tropical climes\, while also amassing great fortunes by exporting frozen protein. After this system was disrupted by war and revolution\, the Chinese Communist government struggled to rebuild their infrastructural capacity\, and had to rely on ersatz solutions\, such as cave cold storages. This paper concludes by exploring the refrigerator revolution\, when cold chains were reinvented in 1980s China. \n\n\n\nChris Courtney is Associate Professor of Modern Chinese History at the University of Durham\, UK. He a social and environmental historian who focusses upon the city of Wuhan and its hinterland. He has published on the history of hazards such as floods and fires\, including the monograph The Nature of Disaster in China. In his more recent research\, he has examined the history of extreme heat\, from a technological\, medical\, and social perspective. He is currently writing a monograph entitled Wuhan: City at the End of Empires. \n\n\n\nJoin Zoom Meeting: https://mit.zoom.us/j/97955535212 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nVenue
URL:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/events/urban-china-lecture-featuring-chris-courtney-defrosting-the-deep-history-of-chinese-cold-chains/
LOCATION:Presented via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Urban China Series
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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260421T203000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260421T220000
DTSTAMP:20260719T162945
CREATED:20260415T161101Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260415T161103Z
UID:44753-1776803400-1776808800@fairbank.fas.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Urban China Lecture Series featuring Zhao Miaoxi —Mismatched Industrial Land Lease Terms: Urban Land Vacancy Induced by Business Turnover
DESCRIPTION:Zoom Meeting link\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSpeaker: Zhao Miaoxi\, South China University of TechnologyIn China’s system of public land ownership\, industrial land leases often extend beyond the relatively short lifespan of enterprises. Consequently\, formulating land use strategies that account for business turnover has emerged as a crucial task for urban planning. This lecture explores urban land vacancy through the primary lens of firm turnover data\, examining the complete business life cycle from market entry to exit. Using downtown Guangzhou as an empirical case study\, the research reveals that the survival spans of most companies are significantly shorter than their granted land tenure\, inevitably leading to spatial inefficiency and vacancy. By simulating the interaction between company survival rates and land tenure periods\, the study evaluates various policy interventions aimed at minimizing land waste. We propose several targeted planning strategies\, including flexible land transfer mechanisms\, the revitalization of underutilized industrial spaces\, and the promotion of mixed-use development.Professor Miaoxi Zhao holds dual Ph.D. degrees in Urban Planning (China) and Geography (Belgium). He is a Professor and Department Head of Urban Planning at South China University of Technology.  His research centers on urban transformation in contemporary China\, examined through the theoretical and empirical lens of the global network society. His methodological and technological innovations in spatial planning have directly informed high-impact policy documents and strategic frameworks\, including the Pearl River Delta Regional Integrated Development Plan\, the Guangzhou Urban Development Strategy (2040)\, and the Shenzhen Hub City Construction Research Report.We would like to thank the Harvard Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies\, the MIT Sustainable Urbanization Lab\, and the Australian Centre on China in the World for supporting this event.  Please subscribe to our mailing list if you’d like to receive e-mail notifications: http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/urbanchinaseminar.Join Zoom Meeting: https://mit.zoom.us/j/97955535212 \n\n\n\nhttps://mit.zoom.us/j/97955535212 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nVenue
URL:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/events/urban-china-lecture-series-featuring-zhao-miaoxi-mismatched-industrial-land-lease-terms-urban-land-vacancy-induced-by-business-turnover/
LOCATION:Presented via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Urban China Series
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