USF Distinguished Professor Public Lecture Series (5 June)

Topic: Government-market-society Relationship Change in Urban Renewal of China

Date: 5 June 2024 (Wednesday)
Time: 14:30 – 16:00 (HKT)
Venue: Room 526, 5/F, Knowles Building

Abstract:
Developmental state, relaxed control, and active market used to shape the trajectory of neo-liberalized urban renewal in China. Over the last decade, however, there is a return of state power in the field of urban renewal with strong intervention expansion in megacities of China. Despite the transition of national institutions and incentives, local governments have exhibited varied urban renewal models. This paper revisits the government-market relationship in urban transformation from the lens of planning control in urban renewal. Taking Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen as example, it reveals that local context has given birth to various urban renewal models, and these inter-urban variations have been attributed to political consistency, natural endowment, and strength of local society. The state-led urban renewal models of Beijing and Shanghai have made the urban renewal financially difficult, and the market-led models of Guangzhou and Shenzhen has been inching towards more state intervention. How to strike the balance between neoliberalism and state interventionism has been the biggest challenge facing urban renewal in China.

Speaker:
Professor Li Tian
Full Professor
Deputy Head of Department of Urban Planning
Tsinghua University

Professor Tian is a full professor and deputy head of the Department of Urban Planning and director of the Research Center for Land Use and Housing Policy at Tsinghua University. She is also the director of the Innovation Center of Intelligent Human Settlements and Space Planning & Governance, Ministry of Natural Resources. She has published 21 books (including Chinese and English) and 178 Chinese and English journal papers, and she has been PI for more than 50 urban planning research and design projects, including National Key R&D Program and Key Program of National Social Science Foundation. From 2014 to 2020, she has been listed by Elsevier “Most Citied Chinese Scholars” in social science field for six consecutive years. Since 2019, she has been listed by Stanford University as “World’s Top 2% Scientists” for consecutive 5 versions. Her research focuses on urbanization, land use and housing studies.