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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250311T150000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250311T163000
DTSTAMP:20260719T174749
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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:20260719T174749
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:20260719T174749
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:20260719T174749
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:20260719T174749
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:20260719T174749
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:20260719T174749
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:20260719T174749
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:20260719T174749
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:20260719T174749
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
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Urban-China-LOGO.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260421T203000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260421T220000
DTSTAMP:20260719T174749
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
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Urban-China.jpg
END:VEVENT
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