Title:The thinking and discussion of urban competitiveness in the age of globalization and digitalization

Speaker:Xiaoyang Wang Department of Urban Planning and Design, Harvard University

Host:Jiasha Fu, RIEM

Time:14:00-15:30, June 8, Friday

Venue:Yide Building H501

Abstract

New forms of urbanization are unfolding around the world that challenge inherited conceptions of the urban as a fixed, bounded and universally generalizable settlement type. Meanwhile, towards the end of the last century, alongside the deepening and accelerating processes at multi-scalar level, massive developments in IT, telecommunications and modern transportation dramatically promoted a revolution in urban-regional economies. Against this background, I try to answer what the urban competitiveness is and how to explore the urban competitiveness in the era of contemporary globalization and digitalization? This lecture is organized as follows. First, I make a comparison between the city and the urban in the context of China’s urbanization, and provide a new epistemology of “the urban” for urban studies and urban planning in China. Second, I interpret the urban competitiveness from an economic geography perspective and point to the key factors associated with the urban competitiveness in China. Third, this lecture summarizes the developmental dynamics of China’s critical cities.

Speaker's Information

王晓阳，现为哈佛大学城市规划与设计系访问学者，城市理论实验室研究助理。牛津大学经济地理学博士，主要研究方向为金融中心、全球城市、城市与区域发展等。2017年，先后在南京大学、清华大学、中国人民大学、北京大学、北京师范大学、西安交通大学和中山大学等国内高校做学术报告。曾任牛津大学地理与环境学院研究助理，香港大学地理系中国问题研究中心研究助理，上海市人民政府发展研究中心助理研究员。