 Good morning everyone to everyone watching here in New York and good evening to our speakers and audience members coming to us virtually across China. My name is Victoria, and I'm the current co-president of the Urban China Work of Columbia University's Graduate School of Architectural Planning and Preservation. On behalf of my team, I extend everyone a warm welcome to day one of the ninth annual Urban China Forum sponsored by the Urban Planning Program and the Weatherhead East Asian Institute here at Columbia. We extend special thanks to our sponsors and to the support of Columbia Global Centers for streaming our event through their online WeChat platform. The Urban China Network was founded in May 2013 by a group of Columbia Urban Planning students with a strong interest in China's urban issues. UCN aims to bring students, scholars, and practitioners from various disciplines here in the United States into a discussion of China's urbanization and ultimately to facilitate the communication between cities in China and the U.S. and speak a little more and to speak a little more about the special relationship between Columbia's Chinese students and academic scholars. Here's Ms. Helena Xiao, associate director of Columbia Global Center Beijing, who joins us virtually today from China. Good evening, Helena. Thank you. Thank you, Victoria. Hello everyone. Good morning, good evening, and good afternoon to all the distinguished guests and the friends around the world. Thank you in advance for spending some time with us today. I'm extremely proud to be invited to the nice conference of Urban China Forum. So as Victoria introduced, I represent the Columbia Global Centers Beijing, which is a regional hub in China of Columbia University. Our mission is to facilitate and promote academic exchange and research collaboration between Columbia students, faculty member with their counterparts in the region. In 2020, hundreds of students, scholars, and administrators participated in various program and events each year in China. So if you are interested, our office is located in Zhongguan Village area on the upper west side of Beijing. So we would be very pleased to have you visit us while you are in the city. It is very much pride that our student at the Urban Planning Department at Columbia Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation, one of the best major at the university as well as in the in the country, have brought together amazing scholars from Columbia and China, and they will facilitate in the following discussion. So this year is the same sustainable urban planning. China, in my view, is focusing on a very timely and critical issue with which correspond with a critical national concern in the country in China as well as a global concern in the post pandemic era. Therefore, we anticipated that the academic insights and best practices presented and discussed at the two day conference will serve as useful references and inspirations for our participants and audiences as we contemplate and solve problems in the region. So I hope that everyone who participated in today's discussion tomorrow's discussion will enjoy them, and we'll be able to have an opportunity to engage with the scholars we invited on questions you are seeking answer to. I also look forward to receiving suggestions and ideas on how to follow up on the academic exchange and collaborations with with UCM with Columbia GSAP as well as the global centers in this area. I look forward to receiving more good news, and now I will give back to Victoria to proceed with the following answer wish that you will all enjoy the discussion today. Thank you. The theme of our forum this year is sustainable urban planning. Today we have two distinguished guests who are speaking on how their research intersects with urban sustainability. Here to speak a little on our forum is our urban planning director and internationally acclaimed scholar, her recent work China urbanization impacts and transitions looks at the interdisciplinary issues of Chinese urbanism from a historical and regional perspective. It is my honor to welcome Professor Wei Ping Wu. Thank you, Victoria, and welcome all wherever you are to this urban China forum. So, you know, the major upside of this virtual and hybrid format is that we're able to connect with scholars in China in Hong Kong, and our alum, I see from the participant list we have some alumni there and really welcome back, and really great to see you all. Thank you for thanks and big round of applause for our students and they've done a terrific job organizing this year's forum. And thanks to the two esteemed speakers today Professor Lee and Professor Tian, and it's really great to see you all even though it's on a smaller screen. And I hope you all will tune in tomorrow and thanks to the Columbia Global Center in Beijing, especially Helena. So this China urban forum our urban China forum has been ongoing every year for a number of years now, something like 15 or 16 years and it's been a terrific platform for us to think about what China is facing. And how cities are, you know, coping with challenges across different geographies in perhaps similar or different ways. And I really would like to kind of draw your attention a little bit to the major stakes that cities are facing today, not only in China, but also across the world. And so, Victoria mentioned the book, urban China urbanizing impacts and transitions that I together with a number of colleagues recently published at University of Pennsylvania Press was exactly actually the outcome of the urban China forum that we held in 2019 just before pandemic. So pandemic really forced us to also think about some of the challenges. So I just like to outline for and particularly I think are relevant to this year's forum. And then number one is of course climate change and not only climate change, but also I think for Chinese cities climate change poses an important transition point. That is, many much of the progress, or a lot of the progress that Chinese cities have made might be wiped away by challenges of climate. And this is what we call developmental delay in the book we can address that issue. Second transition has to do with what we call environmental transition, and which is very much the focus of this time, the urban China forum. That is, we have seen that Chinese cities because of its rapid pace and scope of development are witnessing both phenomenon that are characteristics of global south cities, while other cities in China are experiencing phenomenon that are more typical of global north cities. So this kind of transitional state is rather unique, and rather, you know, urgent for Chinese cities. And then third, obviously, is what we have observed for a number of years now, the demographic shift or transition, the rapidly aging society that we are all seeing normally in China, but in many other countries. Last but not least, is the technological shift and pandemic very much illustrated that that the use of digital technology and other types of technological platforms in urban governance and management and China obviously is on the cutting edge of doing that. So I hope through this forum. Some of these transitional issues are going to be discussed further and I very much look forward to the presentations and discussions. Again, thank you all and welcome. Thank you, Professor way paying a gentle reminder to our audience members that each speaker will have 30 minutes lecture and followed by a five minutes of immediate questions. And after both lectures, the discussion panel will be opened up to the public. Please enter your questions in the chat or online and use the raise hand function to indicate you wish to speak. Thank you to our communications coordinator and our first year, G young Chen to like introduce you our first speaker. Thank you. It's a great honor to have our first speaker, Professor Lee Tien. Professor Tien is a PhD supervisor and it's on the head of the Department of Urban Planning. And while university, her research focuses on urbanization and that you studies, Professor Tien has a great number of publications in both Chinese and English, including floating boats and more than 130 journal papers with 30 SSI or SAI papers at the first all corresponding authors. With her extensive research, Professor Tien has also been planning leads for many urban design projects in Chinese service from 2014 to 2020. She was listed as the most cited Chinese scholars for six consecutive years. Now, I'll hand over to Professor Tien and welcome her to talk about urban regeneration in China. Okay. Thank you. I'll share my screen. The slide. Yes, we can see it very well. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Good evening or good morning or good afternoon, whatever. It's my great pleasure to join in this interesting forum. Thanks for the invitation to share my recent research with you. My topic is transition of urban planning and the planning, urban renew and the planning responses in China, analytical framework of government market society relationship to be short GMS relationship. I'm going to briefly talk about five parts introduction, GMS relationship in urban renew of China, and the urban renew practice and the planning responses of Mac cities in the full first tier cities of China, based on Gwangshen. And then we compile the urban renew models of this four cities based on analytical framework of GMS relationship, and it concludes with some discussions on the policy implications. As Professor Wu mentioned, we are facing a transition era. In China during the 14th five year plan period, urban renew has become a key national strategy, indicating that as planning for growth has turned into planning for redevelopment. We are going to divide the urban renew of China since 1990 into three stages. The first stage was from is from 1990 to early 2000s. Urban renew was led by surprising secondary industries and developing tertiary industries. And dilapidated building renovation, we got in 2008, three O3 new policies, three O's means old factories, old villages and old communities was initiated by Ministry of Land Resources and Guangdong province. Its key points are decentralization, you know, to break the monopoly, the land monopoly of state, local state in the primary land market and encouraging the original land users and developers to initiate the development themselves. So during this period, urban renew was characterized by property like reconstruction. But since 2016, many changes have taken place in urban renew failed. Many cities claim this, you know, new urban renew strategy as integrated redevelopment and patchwork renovation. It means, you know, the centralization of state power and, you know, the coordinating or coordination, the role of local government has been enhanced since then. In research, we are going to address three key research questions. What are the characteristics of GMS relationship in urban renew of China, and what are the local planning responses in this max cities. The third issue is how has the GMS relationship influenced urban renew in max cities of Beijing Guangshan. In this part, part two examines, you know, the theoretical issue GMS relationship in urban renew. Firstly, we are going to, you know, we go through the classical debates over station interventionism and neoliberalism. Cairns, you know, as many of you may have known, Cairns opposes lazy fare and advocates the expansion of government functions. The state interventionism actually played a significant role in the new deal in the United States and post-war prosperity in European countries after World War II. Neoliberalism, the representative is, you know, Hayek, he believes in the self-cracking power of the invisible hand of the market, and he argues the role of government should be limited to maintain the rule of law and avoid getting involved in other areas as much as possible. The Reagan administration of U.S. and Shachar government of the U.K. warmly embraced neoliberalism in the 1980s, and since then neoliberalism has replaced the dominant position of Cairns nationalism in the West. Many, you know, many scholars argue urban planning should lift enough space for the liberal order to play its role and prevent the government from abusing authority in planning administration during the, you know, in particular in the early stage of reform opening in China. Here we analyze the role of stakeholders in urban renewal of China. Firstly, we are going to look at the role of government because government plays a dominant role in the economic growth of China. Central government actually, you know, its objective is maintain political stability and governing legitimacy and economic and social considerations are also the objectives but not the priority. For local government, they want to maximize fiscal revenue and upgrade industrial structure, you know, improve the quality of urban development, and government sectors and individual officials, they have their own objectives in urban renewal. For developers, you know, their objectives are very clear to reduce costs and increase profits to maximize their benefits. For original, you know, relocated property owner, the claim high compensation as much as possible, sometimes even unearned interest in Chinese, Chai Qian, Chai Qian Yi Bu Deng Tian. So, in the power structure of China, government plays a dominant role and is responsible for allocating space resources and making urban renewal rules. Market, of course, is very plays a essential role in implementing urban renewal planning, but its role is subject to the control of government. In China, social forces have long been very weak in the power structure of China. Since the 19th National Congress, the state has attached great importance on urban communities governance based on party grassroots cultivation. This part, we are going to examine the practice and the planning responses of this four max cities. First, let's first case is Beijing. According to the urban renewal planning of Beijing published two years ago, landed to be renewed in the central city accounts for more than 50% of the city's total. The floor space area of urban renew is very large as high as 245 million square meters and most of this renewed space is located in the central city. In terms of the urban renewal of Beijing, we call it GMS relationship as government-like state owned enterprises. SOESR charge of implementation and social capital has been encouraged to participate in the urban renewal. In the central city, the renovation of old residential areas and dilapidated buildings have been mainly founded by municipal and district level governments. So we call this as kind of paternalism. Although a market has been encouraged to participate in the urban renewal, but the strict planning control has left very little space for developers to make profit. According to the urban planning master planning of Beijing, no extra space has been allowed to be added in the urban renewal of central city. So there are only three paths of land appreciation. For example, functional changes, reutilization of idle space and provision of community value added services. However, in many cases, this kind of value added profit is not sufficient from covering the costs of urban renewal. Beijing proposed policy framework. One means Beijing urban renewal regulation plus management policies and X policy documents and standards. Correspondingly, it established three level urban renewal planning system including city-wide urban renewal subject plan, regulatory planning for blocks and urban renewal action plan for those blocks and different types of space. Since 2000, Shanghai's urban renewal has experienced three stages. In the first decade, urban renewal was led by mega projects such as Shanghai Expo and historical area revitalization. In the second decade, urban renewal focused on central city incremental renovation. But since last year, Shanghai government clarified its urban renewal strategy as government-led SOES operated incremental urban renewal. So its GMS relationship is basically, you know, government-led and municipal government classifies urban renewal projects into two cans of projects. One is government-led projects which will be led by government platform and SOES platform. Such projects have multiple considerations. The second category is market-led urban renewal projects but its scale has been strictly controlled to avoid the negative influence on the land leasing revenue of government in the primary land market. Shanghai also established, you know, three level of urban renewal action planning system. Last year, including city-wide urban renewal guidelines, urban renewal action plan for special regions, and urban renewal implementation plan for blocks and projects. Guangzhou has adopted, you know, different urban renewal strategies from Beijing and Shanghai. Since 2000, we also divided its urban renewal into three stages. From 2000 to 2008, urban renewal was characterized by dilapidated building reconstruction and industrial upgrading. After the 2008-03 renewal, the renewal actually during this period was mainly property-led reconstruction. But since 2016, Guangzhou government enhanced its control on market participation. So it proposed the strategy, renewal strategy so-called integrated redevelopment and patchwork renovation. We named the GMS relationship of Guangzhou urban renewal as government-led and market-oriented. The 2003 renewal is kind of, you know, decentralization and encourage the initiation of redevelopment by land users and developers. So in this period, it was bottom-up fragmented redevelopment driven by real estate development. But this has brought many challenges on the land leasing revenue of government in the primary land market. So Guangzhou municipal government made a lot of changes for the urban renewal since 2016. In Guangzhou, social forces are kind of, are very different from those in Beijing and Shanghai because clients play an important role in renewal. These clients have strong capability to mobilize economic and social capital. So usually the village requires high compensation for demolition and reconstruction, relocation. Guangzhou urban planning, urban renewal planning system has experienced several changes since the 2003 renewal. Now it has established a four-level urban renewal planning system including city-wide urban renewal subject plan, special area renewal plan is established to coordinate the redevelopment of different renewal. The third level is renewal unit, basically based on blocks and project implementation scheme. In terms of Shenzhen, its urban renewal stage classification is very similar to that of Guangzhou. But different from Guangzhou, during the 2003 renewal period, Shenzhen municipal government claims a positive non-interventionism urban renewal strategy to encourage market play a dominant role in the urban renewal. But since 2016, it also enhanced its control on market operation in the urban renewal. Since last year, government led land consolidation in many renewal projects. So a strong plan organization, you know, very similar to that of even stronger than those in Guangzhou has a great impact on urban renewal. Because, you know, we call that anti-communist dilemma caused by those new households, things who has become a main factor of impeding urban renewal progress. So it also established a four-level urban renewal planning system. Part four compiles this different urban renewal models in Beishang, Guangshan. Firstly, we need to understand the changes of micro-social and economic environment. First change is a shrinkage of local discretion under the central local relationship change. Many economists and scholars attribute the rapid growth of China's economy to fiscal federalism with Chinese characteristics and a political decentralization and the financial decentralization. But recently, over the last several years, great changes have taken place. Central government enhanced its control and decreased the space for local discretion. Territorial spatial planning serves as a key tool for the central government to enhance their control, you know, through three zone, three boundaries, delimination, you know, which has limited the discretionary power of local government in land expansion. Also, Ministry of Housing has successfully issued many policies on building regulations in, you know, across China, for example, they set up the residential head limits now to exceed 80 meters and, you know, prevent large scale demolition in urban renewal. So under this central local relationship change, many local governments have to transfer these strategies to patchwork renovation and the scale of demolition reconstruction significantly decreased. The second change is transition from property-led redevelopment to real estate defanatialization. Last year, the central government promulgated the policy, such as three red lines, which set the limits on debt to asset ratio and cash to debt ratio. This has caused a lot of developers, including many big developers, to go into bankruptcy and caused the, you know, the so-called winter of developers. Third change is transition from neoliberal to neo-nationalist development, which are reflected in two aspects. One is mixed ownership of SOEs and the private developers has been promoted with large SOEs occupying the leading and dominant position in the economy. The second aspect is, you know, state acts as a leader, planner, regulator, coordinator and protector of national economy and the stress of central government has been continuously enhanced. So in some years, the return of state power in urban renewal, which are reflected in changes of central local relations, government enterprise relations and the real estate market policy changes. Meanwhile, local governments face huge financial burdens of renovation of old communities. But they have to do better the cost due to the need of social stability under the paternalism. Here shows, you know, the differences and similarities of urban renewal models of Beijing Guangshan. So we summarize, you know, these models as follows Beijing paternalized government, weak market relying on SOEs and weak society, Shanghai, also retiring government, SOEs run platforms plus market and weak society. In Guangzhou, it coordinated government, strong market and client society. Shenzhen decentralized government, strong market and client society. So this, we don't have time to go through the details of this four models. I will briefly talk about several findings based on the comparison. Firstly, natural endowment and reliance on land revenue have great impacts on renewal progress. Shenzhen has been most active to push forward the renewal progress through encouraging market participation because, you know, it has very limited land resources. Meanwhile, the land, the proportion of land leasing revenue in local revenue only accounted for around 10%. So much less than other three next cities. Guangzhou has been encouraging market participation, but it is cautious to control the scale of, you know, three outs, the bottom up redevelopment, considering that, you know, the three outs has generated some negative impacts on the land leasing revenue of government. Urban renewal of Beijing and Shanghai mainly depends on SOEs. Beijing adopts the strategy of patchwork renovation in Shanghai compliance reconstruction, demolition reconstruction patchwork renovation. The second finding is all these four cities have enhanced their planning control recently. Basically the stronger the government intervention, the stronger the rigidity of control and the weaker of motivation for renewal. In Beijing and Shanghai, because we have taken very stringent planning control, so the space for market participation has been very limited. In Guangzhou and Shenzhen recently planning control has been enhanced. And the third finding is shrinking local discretion and market participation as we as I mentioned earlier. And the fourth finding is, you know, they have similarities in social exclusion of migrant population in Guangzhou and Shenzhen property renewal has excluded migrant population from the central city in Beijing and Shanghai social exclusion has been driven by the demolition of informal illegal buildings. As a GMS conflict and the challenges in urban renewal, I summarize it into three contradictions. First contradiction is, you know, it's between planning control and market motivation. I just mentioned that the second contradiction is, you know, that between public finance capacity and paternalized the state during the pandemic, China's, you know, the pandemic and real SDD financialization has great significant impacts on the national economy. This year the balance in the first half this year the balance of local revenue and expenditure in all 31 provinces and cities were negative. And also the third contradiction is that between also retiring government and grassroots governance, social forces have always been very weak in China. So the biggest challenge facing urban renewing in China is how to strike the balance between market participation and government intervention. How to strike the balance between government control and its capacity building. How to strike the balance between paternalism and social inclusion. Now this conclusion, you know, we, we conclusion part we are going to, you know, where briefly goes through these three key issues. This is, you know, I don't have answer to this strike the balance between new liberalism and the new nationalism. Let the market continue to play a essential role in the urban renewal. And this, you know, the local discretion on the evolution of central and the local relations, if it's possible, you know, appropriate relaxation of planning control and the, you know, local governments discretion unnecessary for effective governance in China. And third issue is transformation from property like urban renewal to urban regeneration to safeguard the housing rights of more than 300 million migrant population in the urban renewal. So that's I think I'm running out of my time. Thank you. Any questions or comments. Welcome. Thank you Professor Chen for your speech now we're opening up very quick five minutes in media Q&A for this lecture. Okay, I will think of one as I have written through this lecture first of all very a lot of great research and it is very helpful stake of information for us to look into the current mode and possibly I've been planning this general framework. My question is thinking, you mentioned in the presentation that there's an importance to think about this balance between government and market forces in urban planning regime. What this there is an obvious liking of social forces in the process of urban renewal. What kind of or is there thinking about innovative kind of starting point or maybe the social aspect to jump in into this urban planning regime, especially for a renewal in China. So your question so your question is how to involve social forces in the urban planning of China, you mean, because it's not sometimes it's not clear the sound. Okay. This is a difficult question because recently I'm very interested in the history of China. So I read several books on that. In the 5000 years history of China. The social forces have always been very weak. Of course, planners have tried their best to participate. You know to encourage social forces participation in urban renewal for example in Beijing you probably have heard about Xingqinhe lab, you know, Xingqinhe experiment, Xingqinhe Shiyan. And also government has sent a lot of we call that community planner or responsibility planner some some something like that you know to help local residents to be involved in urban renewal. But I think this, you know, this is how to say that kind of limited public participation community participation for the urban renewal of older communities. Of course, the support from local residents is very important. But they don't have much capital, you know, to, to initiate the renewal at this stage, many communities renewal have been founded by governments. But you have, you have, you know, you have seen you have the deficit situation of local governments in, you know, during the pandemic period so I think it's, it's very difficult but of course we can do something for example we also design a platform for local residents to participate in the urban renewal planning including planning. For example, they can designate where the public facilities can be located. And, you know, any other opinions, you know, they want to express in the urban renewal so that planners kind can summarize what they want and help them, you know, get more funds. You know, but I still, you know, I still insist that market forces are very, very important. You know, because they have many economic capitals to, to, you know, provide more public facilities and, you know, help organize the community of fires, etc. Because China is very different from United States because those property are owned by individual individuals. But in China in the central cities, in the central area of those max cities, many of buildings are owned by work units, those employees have, you know, have left there for like a long time like for 20 years or 30 years, and they pay a very low rent to their employers. But they will not invest in the urban renewal in the central area. So that's, that's very different from that in the United States. So I think a limited planners can help facilitate limited public participation, but you know, just limited because planners don't have much capital in helping in pushing forward the renewal of communities. I don't know, because this is a complicated issue. You know, social forces actually have been a difficult and a sensitive issue in China. Thank you so much for that, Professor. Um, so we next we have a question from me. Oh, I mean, I mean, thank you so much for passing time for your presentation. It's very inspiring. And my name is any way I am a PhD student at the University of Pennsylvania, but I'm also a GSAP and you are alone. The question is, I guess, pretty premature as specific. I am wondering how Shanghai planners will be dealing with their convoluted household registration pattern a, for example, like Shikuman because I, from my understanding, those old structures are often registered with a lot of old and what if urban renewal deemed some of the places and livable and with that, where should those households go. Thank you for your question. Yiming, huh. You're from Shanghai. Yeah, I'm from Shanghai and I graduated from school and then Columbia. And now I mean, okay. Okay, I actually I think, you know, planners in Shanghai, you know, might be the right person to ask to answer this question because I just, you know, got some second hand information from my students at Tom G University because I, you know, I used to teach there for 10 years. So those, that's, that's, you know, very difficult issue. This year, last year, since last year Shanghai municipal government, you know, because the urban renewal focused on focuses on Central City renovation at this time during, you know, the last two or three years. I heard, you know, just heard that they, they want to, you know, of course, for those Shikuman with historical values, of course, they need to reserve, protect, reserve some but for those, you know, Shikuman buildings with very low quality. They want to, you know, the municipal government want to demolish them and replace the high rise buildings, but not high rise buildings high end buildings with same floor space so no extra space. So that means the housing price will be as high as like 300,000 yuan per square meter or even, you know, something like that, kind of crazy, you know, plan. So it's very difficult to, to, you know, to, how to say that, reconstruct those old Shikuman communities with low quality of building. I don't think that's a sustainable solution to that. But how to, so, so the progress is very slow at this time. I think in Shanghai because, you know, in my, in my words, Shanghai, now Beijing, become more and more like Beijing with very, very stringent planning control. Actually, I think this is problematic. You know, if you insist, no extra space, no, any new extra space to be added in urban renewal is financially very difficult. So I actually I don't have a clear answer to your question. But I also am doing some surveys and collecting the policy documents of urban renewal to see what what's happening in the cities and what will happen in the near future. Thank you. Well, thank you for your answer. I think these are all very super helpful. And yeah, I feel like the 14 fifth five year plan just speak a little bit about, especially the Shanghai version this big a little bit about how they're going to deal with Shikuman and I believe there is a historical reservation perspective in there. Like, they are hoping to offer residents with options if these buildings they think are in good value and they are going to preserve them. So I'm offering people options whether they can choose to live in or like what you said like the high end quality building that may not be at the city center or they can choose to relocate temporarily and then wait for their Shikuman to be redeveloped. So I think I'm still optimistic about that but I like, I will also need to do some research on my end, but thank you so much for your answer. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Thank you for your question. We're just going to move really quickly to Professor we're running a little bit behind schedule but like we'll we'll make sure that Professor Lee has his full 30 minutes after Professor was question. Okay. I think my attention, you were saying that so that the decentralization of physical resources for regeneration, it's changing there's more central controls through spatial planning and territorial planning. I'm wondering, is there really, there is, are there really teeth to that more centralized control because revenue wise localities are still very much in charge of, you know, the expenditure responsibilities right there's no real central resources per se for regeneration so really curious about your thought. Oh, yes, this is, this is a key point. Yeah. That's kind of, you know, dilemma, of course, actually we think urban renew is local issue. It's not a, you know, a issue which central government should put some controls on that. Unfortunately, you know, this kind of transition from, you know, of enhancing central control has been quite obvious since, you know, last year. Particularly in the, you know, in the restriction on the demolition and reconstruction, because several officials, local top officials have been punished because of the, you know, the demolition, for example in Guangzhou because, you know, of cutting big trace. So President Xi actually gave some required local government to deal with this kind of issue so many top officials in Guangzhou were punished for that. So they became more and more cautious not to, you know, not to demolish some old buildings. Because, yeah, it, you know, local government has to be responsible for its expenditure and its revenue, but in the meantime, this officials promotion is subject to the higher level government. So this, this is kind of dilemma or, you know, governance. So, during, you know, this pandemic, actually, I think local government has found it very difficult to, how to say that, you know, last year Shanghai, Shanghai's revenue was higher than its expenditure but this year it also had the problem of deficit. We don't know we, we ought to say that we expect some big changes after the 20th National Congress but it's unpredictable. I think this has been a very big challenge facing local government, and also facing central government because of the, you know, the COVID policy. Thank you, Professor Wu. I think you ask a very important question, but let's see what will happen recently. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Professor Tien and Professor Wu, and thank you all for your participation. And now it is my great honor to introduce you to our next foreign speaker, Professor Wei Feng Li. Professor Li is Associate Dean of Research and Post for Research Postgraduate Studies and Associate Professor in the Faculty of Architecture and the University of Hong Kong. In 2011, he has been working in the Department of Urban Planning and Design after receiving his PhD from MIT. His research interests focus on environmental sustainability associated with urbanization and transportation, urban spatial structure and air pollution, health effects, as well as the use of urban modeling remote sensing and big data in urban and environmental studies. In his academic reputation, Professor Li is also a member of the editorial board of Transportation Research D Transport Environment, Honor Secretary of Building Smart International Hong Kong Chapter and immediate past president of the Hong Kong Jazz Association. He was an associate editor of Journal of Transport and Land Use, and he received International Association for China Planning Distinguished Service Award in 2018. Let's now welcome Professor Wei Feng Li. Thank you very much for your introduction, Wei. First of all, I would like to thank you for your kind invitation to the 9th Urban China Forum, Professor Wu and the Urban China Network team. It is my great pleasure to participate in the forum and present my relevant research, also remotely from Hong Kong. I would love to be in New York. In fact, it has been three years since my last travel. Professor Tian has discussed comprehensively on the urban regeneration process in China through the triangles of government, market and society. So to me, I always believe regeneration, for example, of urban villages will be the key to the sustainable development in China. So probably I will approach sustainable planning in China from a different perspective, environmental sustainability and justice. So probably more in relation to my research on air pollution. I fully concur with Professor Wu. The pandemic has brought in significant changes as well as challenges in sustainable urban planning in China. For example, is the intersect between pandemic and climate change and the environmental shift. So probably this is a bit off topic, but I want to start with my talk with the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences last year. So two economists were awarded because of their methodological contributions to the analysis of causal relationships. So here are two key important messages. One is the methodological innovations in lieu of this kind of controlled field experiment. And the second one is causal relationships. So why is causal relations so important? Many of these kind of big questions in the society in urban areas deal with cause and effect. For example, when we talk about sustainable urban planning. We are interested in understanding those causal effects on urban sustainability or proposed planning design policy interventions. For example, I myself am interested in how those kind of alternative neighborhood design, for example, can reduce carbon emissions and towards the so-called carbon neutrality. Or like the impact of new public transport infrastructure on reducing air pollution. So, however, these questions are difficult to answer because we have nothing to use as a comparison. So it will not be possible for us to know the results if there had been no new public transport infrastructure. For example, because we can only see the results from new public transport infrastructure, but not both so that we can compare in the same place. So that's why it leads to those kind of naturalism. Basically, some scholars believe the methods of social science should follow those of the natural science in which a very important component is so-called controlled field experiment. So in those kind of settings, there are two groups of subjects. One that receives treatment and the other one doesn't. So here the key is those kind of random assignment. So by incorporating random assignment or we call chance into the study design. So those kind of controlled experiment gain opportunities to uncover those kind of causal relationships. So for example, it is interesting back in 2019, the Nobel Prize in economics was awarded to three economics for their experimental approach to elevating global poverty. So very interesting long before the COVID-19. So those kind of economics already highlighted the importance of vaccine on improving health of the poor so that to elevate poverty. So you can see here so the different villages were assigned to three different groups by lottery. So here it's a random assignment and then you can see so the first group receives nothing and it's a control group and the first so-called treatment group basically had those kind of so-called mobile clinics, which means vaccine were provided 24 hours, seven days per week. And the second achievement group in addition to mobile clinics, they also received those kind of food incentives, lentils. So we can interpret them as reduced price for vaccine. So in that context, we can contribute to the differences in vaccine rate entirely to the treatment because all else have been well controlled. So the same economics has also done some different to examine those kind of how to improve scope performance, for example, by comparing providing more textbooks, providing free lunch or providing targeted help for weak students. So here a very important question is why field experiment, why controlled experiment? Because simply comparing schools with different access to textbooks or will not work because the schools could differ in many ways. So one way of circumventing those kind of difficulties is to ensure that the schools begin being compared have the same average characteristics. So here, very important, how can this be achieved? Still by random assignment, by chance, by lottery. Because letting chance decide which schools are placed in the group for comparison. As long as we have a large number of schools participating in those kind of experiments, we can make sure those schools in different groups will have similar average characteristics. So back to sustainable urban planning. So planners could also consider those kind of experiments, controlled experiments to observe how for say modification, physical form, new urban infrastructure might change urban performance. So here the key is those kind of interventions would use place-based randomization. So in which is this kind of key spaces are chosen as areas for receiving treatment while similar other spaces don't receive treatment. For example, do street design reduce traffic accidents or improvement to lighting sound increase the use of a public park? And what's the impact of for say urban infrastructure investment on poverty value? Actually, this is an interesting experiment in Mexico in which the local government receives only half of the funding requested for infrastructure improvement. So that the local government decided to pay if only half of the street by random selection. So this is a perfect controlled experiment. However, you might argue many planning tools and policies cannot be randomized. And another key issue here is whether those kind of experiment results have the so-called external validity. In other words, whether the results apply in other contexts. For example, is it possible to generalize those kind of results of experiment in American cities to Chinese cities? And what's more, what happens if experiment intervention is scaled up, for example, from the Columbia campus to the city of New York? And then whether it can be transferred to the city of Shanghai? So those are all challenges and questions. So as a result, field experiments have been rarely if not impossible applied in urban rural planning. So we have to thank those kind of Nobel laureates in 2021 last year. Because they have shown that it's possible to answer these and similar questions by using natural experiment. So here, the key is not a controlled experiment, but rather it's to use those kinds of situations arising in real life in which chance events or policy changes result in groups of people being treated differently. In a way that resembles those kind of randomized controlled experiment. So those kind of natural experiment can also occur frequently in the urban settings. For example, those kind of policy changes in some regions of a country. For example, the different environmental regulations in adjacent cities, counties, or resulting from those housing redevelopment, urban regeneration process, all those kind of large scale green park interventions. So here there's an intended randomness which has exposed some people into treatment while some similar other people not into the treatment so that we can compare those two similar groups. So then back to my research on those kind of environmental pollution and justice issues. So here, a general question you might ask is, for example, does reduction in air pollution leads to disparities in health benefits between the high income and low income individuals? Alternatively, we can ask the same question in different ways. Does exposure to high levels of air pollution cause different adverse health outcomes between the high income and low income individuals? For example, in terms of incidence of lung cancer. So here we have to think about those kind of ideal research design. So according to this kind of controlled experiment. So here we really need a so-called cohort studies, which means a longitudinal study where the individuals share a common character. So that's why, for example, in many cases our urban planning research will be criticised by those kind of public health scholars. This generally believes those kind of ideal research design. So in that case, those kind of unexposed or less exposed comparison groups should be as similar as possible with other factors that could influence the outcomes being studied. So as you can see here, so exposed or non-exposed groups. So they should share the same character. And then the only difference is the treatment. So some are exposed to higher level of pollution, some are not. And very important is this kind of outcome status needs to be established at least twice. So before the treatment and after the treatment. So that we can confidently compare so-called causal effects, whether exposed to high levels of air pollution lead to differences in health outcomes. However, thanks to this kind of natural experiment as introduced by those kind of natural organs. So, so that it's possible to answer those kind of similar questions by the so-called natural experiment. For example, here's a paper done by my colleagues in the Faculty of Business and Economics. You can see they used the Huaihe River as a natural experiment. And you can see here, they did find the significant differences between the northern part and southern part of the Huaihe River in terms of the life expectancy. So here, this is the right one shows basically the distance to the river. So think about if it's a few hundreds away in the northern part from the Huaihe River or in the southern part of the Huaihe River. Actually, those residents share similar socioeconomic characters. They might also share those kind of similar geographical context, right? But why there exists the significant differences in terms of life expectancy? So then you have to think about what happened between the northern part and southern part of the Huaihe River. So people might be familiar with those kind of policies, centralized winter heating policies. Since the central planning, so Chinese government has provided those kind of centralized winter heat in the northern part of the Huaihe River. So which means people in the northern stay warmer in winter. In case people in the southern part of the Huaihe River don't have centralized winter heating system. But people in the northern also at the cost of those kind of notable worst environmental pollution. In case those kind of winter heating has contributed significantly to air pollution, you can see. So similarly, so a few hundreds away in the northern part of the Huaihe River. So the pollution in terms of PM 10, it's a few dozens higher than that in the northern part. So then we can naturally contribute the life expense differences to the differences in air pollution. So this perfectly explains those kind of the beauty of natural experiment. And which also makes those kind of studies possible without doing those kind of experiment field experiment. And what's more, so at this point, we are all talking about the data at the individual level, but for urban scholars, probably it's acceptable to conserve data. Otherwise, it's hard to obtain those kind of larger scale individual data. So I also move to this kind of methodical innovation in so called ecological studies, which a common approach is looking for geographical correlations between forces, the average also outcome, and the average population exposure. Of course, here, the issue is those kind of ecological study cannot be used to make an influence about the individual level associations, which people usually call this kind of ecological fallacy. However, those kind of ecological analysis is still allowing us to make a conclusions at an earlier level. So which can be used still very important for policy makings at urban and rural level right at the cities counties. So they're still very important for sustainable policy makings in environmental sustainability justice. For example, there was a recent so called ecology study of long term exposure to air pollution, and those kind of COVID-19 outcomes. So which pre-cruise those kind of controlling for individual level risk factors. So by applying those kind of methodical innovations in economics. So now it's possible to think about those kind of studies in China in linking air pollution to those kind of social economic disparities. So, in fact, the social economic disparities are linked to many environmental hazards in cities, not on air pollution, but also for say rising heat, island effects, carbon emissions, flooding risks. So to us, so those kind of the importance of sustainable plan tools are to identify targeted those kind of right population, right places for policy making that can reduce disparities. So in the next few minutes, I would have to induce my research. So first one basically it's still a ecology study that means it's aggregate level study to examine the link between air pollution and lung cancer incident in China. So which fundamentally is answer one question, who are faced with a great effect. And then, by acknowledging those kind of ecological fallacies, I would also like to move to the individual level analysis and to answer the question of who are more exposed to PM 2.5 pollution. So at the city level, I will use sense as a case study. So in terms of first question. So basically, linking air pollution to lung cancer incident or those kind of health outcomes. So here, the key research question is whether those kind of PM 2.5 induced health outcomes differ significantly among different social economic groups in China, health leading to a potential case of environmental injustice. So here, to me, the immediate policy planning implication is the potential of developing those kind of urban environmental policies better targeted at the appropriate people and place, for example, the urban rural division, the education attainments and the income division. So this is actually our paper published in environmental international. So here, I think about so theoretically, if we link air pollution to the social economic modification effects, theoretically the relation between air pollution exposure and the house can can be modified by those kind of social economic positions through differences for say in material resources, biological factors, as well as those kind of psychological stress. So as you can clearly see, so air pollution exaggerate those kind of social economic disparities. Because here, usually, the case is the poor are more exposed to air pollution or air pollution, and they are unable to avoid those kind of health consequence from air pollution because of the resource concerns. So basically, that leads to a potential case of environmental injustice. So in the study, so we use those kind of health outcome that database basically it's the China cancer register and annual report. So in that annual report, it included in total around 300 cancer registries, which means like counties, urban districts, and covering a population of around 200 million in 2014. So you can see the distribution here. And in terms of air pollution, we are able to map out the air pollution in China in different years. So here you can see the air pollution and incident cases of male and cancer. So sorry, so we in this study, we only use the male case. There are different significant difference between male and the female cancer and they are different underlying causes. So in this research, so we only use the data for male. So we analysis those kinds as mentioned earlier, those kind of associations at the aggregated area levels, which is county or urban district. And in terms of social enough basically it was kind of urban rural division, income, education attainments, employment and urbanization closely. Those kind of see and basically for the control value, but we also use the weather conditions, location, time, as well as those kind of health and behavior co variables. That has nothing to do probably with with pollution for say smoking or other things. So this shows the results of so you can see those kind of significant divisions between for say urban rural. And then different education attainment. So here we only classified into either two types or three types. So basically low, medium, high or low high. And then you can also see employment. So the general findings in terms of this kind of socio economic and modification in fact is the relationship between the air pollution exposure and male incidence rate is stronger in urban areas than rural areas. So there's a significant so called urban rural division. So here, our primitive interpretation would be those differences in for say primary sources of domestic fuels between urban and rural areas in China. And then the differences in probably smoking status. Actually, we also used some kind of this kind of smoking rate data for further sensitivity test. And then the second one is very important that male residents in countries with low economic or education levels have higher risks of PM 2.5 associated lung cancer incidence. So basically this can contribute to this kind of differences in avoidance behavior against air pollution because of the socio economic status. And the differences awareness of this kind of air pollution effects on health health care. Of course, we found that there are no modification effects all for say the employment status in basically it's an employment ratio or the urban growth ratio. So those doesn't really affect the relationship. So this is basically the fastest study so that have a rely on those kind of so called the methodical intimations and rely on ecological study. But we have to admit that the ecological policy issue basically there's the so called the air pollution exposure misclassification. Probably due to the between area mobility. So people are moving. And the within area valuations air quality value is significantly in the same urban areas. So, but unfortunately those kind of ecological studies aggregated studies assumes that everyone in the same special unit experience the same exposure and leading to this kind of so called exposure miss classifications, especially for those kind of larger special units. So that's that's why we were thinking how could the individual level mobility to help because those kind of data will be able to indicate as a mobility within the same area. And by applying other technologies, we are also able to differentiate the air quality within the city. So that's leading to our second study so who are more exposed to air pollution at a city level. So here's a research question. Other key research question is, where's the exposure to this kind of PM to partner pollution differ significantly among people with different economic status. Who are more exposed. So, yeah, I think the policy or planning implication will be it helps to support those kind of early a alleviation strategies tailored for specific populations specific place by understanding the special association between multi level economic status and exposure to air pollution. And it also demonstrates for example in the future how those kinds of fun technologies and personalized air pollution monitoring will enable the potential of a smart environment to improve the well being of citizens. So this is our paper, again published in the environmental international. So here as I explained earlier so basically is the assumption of for say home based air pollution. Versus those kind of so called individual space time based air pollution so which accounts for within city mobility and the Intra city air pollution valuations. So you can see so we made the use of this kind of mobile phone data from around 6000 cell towers in Shenzhen. So we were able to Extracted the locations. By our own one week day. And then by those kind of satellite data and machine learning mechanism, we are also able to map the special temporal air pollution for example from 12 from 0am 1am to 23pm. So basically for 24 hours. Our air pollution distributions within the city. So then this one shows those kind of Community cumulative individual exposure. Oh, here I call that individual total exposure. And in relation to the economic status aggregated as a residential community levels. So, so here a very important challenge I have admitted is in China, the census data doesn't include income data. So here we have to approximate income by using for example, Every average housing price. So as you can see so here shows the relation between the daytime exposure daily exposure which is 24 hours and those kind of social economic status of the community level. Oh, this one basically at the neighborhood level, you can see so we do see some kind of this linkage between exposure and the social economic status. We also run some regression analysis which confirms the economic status at the both individual and the neighborhood level are strongly linked to the exposure level. So here, if I could summarize the major findings so people living in areas with a higher residential property price are actually exposed more to those kind of air pollution in symptom. So here, a first question as I mentioned earlier, where is a sentence as a traditional Chinese city. So probably we have to put a question mark. So that means, is it possible to generalize the findings from sentence to urban China. And the other thing is actually, our findings contributed to the village on exposure disparities in the developing settings where exposure disparity has not been well understood. And the pattern of this kind of exposure disparity may be so different from that in the Western countries, especially in the northern, northern America. Our potential explanation for the different findings is the difference in the pattern of so called urbanization induced residential segregation across different economic social economic groups in China, which is different from that in the western settings. So, in the Western countries, a typical social spatial pattern involves a rich program of people with high incomes, who tended to live far away from the city center, while the poor are having to live in central areas. In contrast, a typical pattern of residential segregation in relation to urbanization in urban China, particularly here in Shenzhen, involves this kind of concentration of the medium income, medium high income people in the city centers. And the resultant displacement of the poor to the urban fringe. At the same time, those kind of urbanized rapid urbanization in China usually result in higher population density, high intensity of home activities in the central areas than in those kind of outskirts. So, which UL leads to a more severe pollution situation in the central areas. So, combining those two probably, it leads to the findings that like people living in areas with a higher residential property price, are more exposed to PM 2.5 exposures in the case study of Shenzhen. So, of course, so by reflecting those kind of findings, we have to acknowledge the challenges, the problems. So the first issue, of course, is this kind of approximating individual socio-economic status buys a building-level property price. So, this is not ideal, but unfortunately, in the Chinese context, in the census data without income data, we probably that's the best we can do. Of course, another one, if you're linking back to so-called the natural experiment, think about do we have something to specialize this kind of socio-economic segregation? Actually, the answer is yes. Urban villages could also be a good natural experiment. In case those kind of urban villages naturally divided into groups, and it can help us answer the very important question, are individuals living in urban villages exposed to higher level of air pollution exposures? So, this actually will probably give out a different perspective on the same question, linking back to the challenges in the post-pandemic area and in the face of climate change. Actually, this is a very interesting case. I was reading a paper on nature communications last week on how this kind of decarbonization in California actually leads to more equitable air quality in California. So, I was also thinking the same question, will those kind of carbon neutral efforts, decarbonizing efforts, lead to more equitable air quality in urban China? So, this will be a great question for future research, right? So probably, given the time limits, I will conclude here. Thank you very much, and questions, comments are more than welcome. Thank you, Professor Lee, for your enlightening presentation. Can we all give, first of all, give a full round of applause for both Professor Lee and Professor Tian for their time. Everybody old virtual clap. So, if anybody hasn't, so we'll open it up to questions directly for Professor Lee for now. If anybody has any questions, please go ahead. I do actually have a question from WeChat. Jennifer from WeChat asks if it will be possible to get your reports. There are some of the reports that you have shown us over the presentation. Oh, actually, yes. So the two papers on environmental, actually, are urban sources, so you can download anywhere. You can download it online? Yes, yes. I'll share the link afterwards. We'll ask you for it afterwards. And so, does anybody else have any questions? Yes, I have a question. Do you see the hand? Yes, sure. So, Li Laoshi, thank you very much. You actually brought up some really provocative dilemmas that we have to discuss, right? So the Shenzhen's case is interesting because not all western cities have the more wealthy on the suburbs, right? It has to do with history of cities. You know, if you look, go to Europe, much of the city centers were occupied by fairly wealthy residents. Yeah, right. So if the conclusion from your Shenzhen study is that, you know, city centers are more polluting, I think it kind of beat the purpose of, so beat, so this sort of presents us with another key question as planners. We want people to come back to the city centers, right? We don't want them to all go to the suburbs. And so that's a tough question then, right? So do you want to have more pollution or better air quality or do you want to have more access or accessibility? So how do you reconcile this, right? So I'm wondering, this natural experiment may be somewhat problematic because, you know, western cities often time, you know, I asked my students, why do you find the richest areas often to the west part of a city? It's because people going for air quality. But Shenzhen developed so quickly. And the choice of where to develop what kinds of residential areas were not made with, you know, for developers with lots of considerations in mind, right? So I'm actually, you know, also air quality, it's so in a sense elusive that that, you know, one part of the city next day could be the other part of the city. It's a little bit different from water quality. So I'm just curious how you kind of reconcile these kinds of conflicting conclusions and the dilemmas it presents to us as urban researchers and planners. Thank you. Professor, this is a great question. Yeah, I also always think about this kind of dilemma. Yes. So, so to me, so because of the rapid urbanization in Shenzhen probably so over the past like a few decades. Probably planners policy makings didn't have time to really think about air quality issues, environmental sustainability ahead of this kind of economic growth. So I was thinking actually the pandemic, economic slow down probably provided the best opportunities for policy makers to reconcile those kind of economic development and environmental quality, so which so basically now has been the gym of middle class. So, so that's why I put the last question here, think about so in the era of post pandemic climate change. So probably people are talking about this kind of carbon neutrality efforts in China in European in North America. And those kind of efforts actually are naturally consul with those kind of efforts to reduce air quality in some sense. So, that's why I was also asking this question, what will those kind of carbon neutrality efforts actually reduce air quality and the lead to more equitable air quality in urban China. So which basically means for those kind of gym areas in the city, basically the central areas, the air quality will be higher, and then that will attract more so called middle high income people. So that's that's some of those kind of thoughts I had on reconciling those kind of dilemmas at this point. Thank you so much Professor for your question. And so, if there's any not know any other questions from the audience, I just had a quick question about the climate justice move the climate justice movement, which is something that's very popular here in the United States. We have like, in fact, I think every single urban planning student coming into Columbia has to read this book called climate justice from the streets, which is kind of detailing how in American cities, a lot of like in climate injustice intersects with racial and class injustice. Do you see movements like that happening in China. Yeah, yeah, this is a great question. Actually, yeah, I was also reading some of the papers last week on, for example, those kind of US cities have been increasingly put those kind of climate justice, environmental justice actions into the climate change actions. And this question, he has a question like decarbonization has led to more equitable quality in California. So I was also thinking so, so way for Chinese cities towards so called the climate justice. So I actually I was thinking, those kind of bring bring together this kind of dialogues in, in, in equities in terms of air quality, climate change, and those kind of social economics disparities. So I do see those kind of movement as I explained earlier. So it's, it's possible this kind of for Chinese cities to justify this kind of air quality, many management measures in clean areas by discussing those kind of global connections, fairness is and more importantly so in answering Professor was question earlier so basically, very important is for policy makers to reconcile those kind of dilemmas in the opportunities that arise from pandemic, as well as those kind of economic slow down so they have to think about so what's the future for developing China. Absolutely. Thank you for that answer that I think in lines quite a bit. Um, so we're going to actually open up the discussion panel. So, any, like people can ask questions to both professor, like, Tian and Professor Lee. If there is any question that like no question, I can get the ball started. So, Professor Lee Professor chance thank you for your lectures, I was just wondering, from both of your perspective, how do the, like what, like, where does climate justice and where does urban regeneration, come from, like, in like, does it come from more from the government level does it come from civic societies. There is a lot of movements here and I guess it's similar to the question I was asking with Professor Lee, there's like a lot of movements here that's coming from civic groups, is that is that something that exists in China right now, urban civic groups that kind of are trying to fight for more sustainable urban regeneration more like historical preservation and climate justice. So this is the question for both of Professor Tian and Professor. Oh, Professor Tian, would you like to start. Okay. Sorry. Sorry, Professor Tian probably you have to unmute yourself. Yeah. Oh, I think you can start. You can start first, because I think his question is more about climate justice something like that. I think in regards to urban regeneration as well. I feel like the two are very closely tied at occurrence, like, at least here in the United States, like climate disasters have been kind of on the forefront of how, like, urban, like cities think about regeneration and adaptation. So if either of you could, I would love to hear from either of you how you see governments working with civil society? Sure, I guess this is a great question and probably I will put the question into the great framework provided by Professor Tian. So basically it's a triangle among so-called government society and the market. So in terms of for say environmental justice, climate justice in Chinese cities, I would say probably this has been more popular because of so-called Chinese cities turned to so-called a consumer city. So probably as as mentioned by Professor Xi Zheng at MIT, so consumers in the consumer city, so probably residents will value environmental sustainability, value air quality, and this will reflect into the property price. So this gives incentives for both the government developers. So basically incentives to increase, sorry, to enhance air quality, enhance those kind of so-called climate actions, for example, those kind of decarbonization efforts because this will be evaluated in the market and this will be reflected in the property price in the so in China, so those kind of land sales are still the key sources for local government revenues, right? So I see the movement from the market side to the developers, to the government. So in that triangle, probably I think it will become more popular in terms of environmental justice, climate justice, and then towards models kind of so-called carbon neutrality efforts, which in fact also helps to reduce air pollution. Okay. Okay, thank you, Professor Li. I think it's my turn to answer this question. I prefer for the redevelopment of China as urban renewing instead of urban regeneration. According to British planners, urban regeneration involves social, economic, environmental aspects. So it's more like comprehensive. It addresses more like the supply of public goods, social equity, and some environmental issues, as Professor Li mentioned. But in China, there has been more, how to say that, property light during like in Guangzhou and Shenzhen, a lot of old buildings were demolished to, you know, new high-rise buildings have been built. We call this kind of gentrification, like in Shanghai in the central area renovation. The plan to be honest and to be, you know, the plan of government is kind of formal gentrification because they want to replace our buildings with high-end quality of buildings. So I don't like, you know, so I prefer you know, to call it as urban renew. I'm not optimistic about the collaboration between government and a civic society in the urban renewal of China, not just in urban renewal failed. For other fields, you know, as I mentioned, the long history of China has revealed social forces have been very, very weak. So in this sense, I, you know, I'm kind of pessimistic on the collaboration between government and a civic society. It's more kind of government dominant in every aspect of economic, social and environmental lives of Chinese people. I think I, you know, this is my personal viewpoint. But of course, you know, we should, we shouldn't say, oh, then we can do nothing, but we shouldn't expect too much. Thank you, Professor Jian, Professor Li. I think we have a question from the audience. Christian, do you want to go ahead? Yes, sure. Thank you so much for both of your presentations. They were really, really interesting. I am from Germany. And I think this question is more for you, Professor Li. And we're also facing several air quality issues inside the city. And it's mostly caused by automobiles and trucks. And so far, Germany has only given the limit as in a state level, where the city itself has to implement the actual methods and tools to reduce the air pollution, like tolling, congestion pricing or something similar. And as you can imagine, the results are quite mixed, mostly based on the political role of a governing party in the city itself. And my question for you is, do you think that it's more effective to improve air quality by a city or federal state level, or directly by the state, especially with a difference between Germany's and China's political system? Okay, thank you. Thank you very much, Christian, for the great question. Yeah, this is a very interesting question. Actually, so as you probably know, and also as explained by Professor Tian, like in terms of urban generation, different Chinese cities have different strategies. Actually, this, to me, I think it's also similar in Chinese cities in reducing air pollution. So basically, as you mentioned, so within cities, probably the major pollution sources are automobiles. And in Chinese cities, automobile ownership has been increasing significantly over the past decade. So basically, for local government, one key challenge to control air quality is to how to manage this crowd and restrict basically automobiles. So basically, two things, one thing is in terms of ownership. So in that sense, you can see, so Beijing and Shanghai are doing very differently. In Shanghai, it's a lottery system. So sorry, in Shanghai, it's a bidding system, right? It's a market force bidding system while in Beijing, it's a lottery system. And then the other one is basically usage, right, usage. So basically, how to control automobile usage. Of course, this has been very rare recently because of the reduced activities from COVID. But think about the pre-COVID time. So Beijing was implemented as this kind of single day usage, all this kind of usage by the odds and all this kind of policies. So in terms of policy transfer, it's even interesting. You can think about basically bidding system, lottery systems. And then think about how other cities were learning from those kind of systems. For example, in Guangzhou, basically, they have combined the lottery and the bidding system. So basically, half by bidding, half by lottery. So those kind of interesting combinations in terms of policy transfer and policy learning. So to me, so this is very similar in Chinese cities, if compared to German cities. So somehow, it also depends on those kind of political wills. But if we move from air quality to carbon emission, so currently it's probably carbon emissions are a more important issue because of carbon neutrality efforts. In that sense, basically, I think most Chinese cities are relying on the market forces. Basically, they are so-called carbon trading systems in many city regions in China. And China is planning to develop a nationwide carbon trading system similar to the European carbon trading system. So it's more relying on those kind of market forces. So I hope I answered your question. But to be frank, we don't have data to show which one is more effective at this point. Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much. Question from Yinning. Hi, thank you. Hi, Professor Li. This is a question for Professor Li. First of all, thank you so much for your presentation. And my question this time might be a little bit general. I'm interested in your research about the relationship between air pollution and disease. From a social science scholar's perspective, I am kind of wondering how shall we confidently draw their causal relationship between these two factors? Because from my understanding, I feel like the possibility of disease is also impacted by people's lifestyle, individual's lifestyle, and also maybe they have some initial disease that is not easily detected by researchers, something like that. I am also trying to relate this to their health impact assessments that is featured in Healthy China 2030 and also the 14 five-year plan. Some of the scholars that I talked with also talked about the difficulty to really carry out that assessment because they also feel it's really hard to monitor if a certain event will impact on people's individual's health. So look forward to your insights and comments on this. Yeah, so this is a great question. And it also imposes a great challenge. So that's why I started my talk about discussing those kind of causal relationship and how to address those causal relationship in economic terms. So to be frank, so the issues for us, for the urban scholars in assessing those kind of relationships will be very much criticized by scholars in public health. In case for scholars in public health, they only believe, as I mentioned, there's cohort studies, basically a longitudinal observation of people share the same characters. So yeah, you're absolutely right. So only by observing those kind of people with same characters and expose them to different air pollution, different hazards, so is it possible for us to confidently draw some conclusions in terms of health outcomes? So that's why like in our faculties, some of the colleagues are relying on those kind of cohort database. For example, there's a UK Biobank in which they have data for half million citizens in United Kingdom across different cities. And we also have so-called the Hong Kong family cohort, so in which was developed by the medical faculty in the University of Hong Kong. So our colleagues are working with and here a very important thing is for public health scholars probably say, I'm not paying attention to the law played by the built environment. So basically, as you mentioned, the interest in those kind of gene effects, interest in the lifestyle effects on the health outcomes. So for us, so it's possible for us to build so-called the built environment database and link those kind of built environment contributions to the health outcome. So that's to me, I think that's the beauty of this collaboration between urban scholars and public health scholars. So in the end, so we are able to stay on the same boat and for some meaningful studies. Otherwise, it should be flanked. So I wrote a few proposals on this one and they were all criticized by the public health scholars. Yeah, thank you so much for your answer. Okay, so we have to wrap up now because the next class is going to use our like classroom very soon. So we want to first of all thank you Professor Tian Li and Professor Li Wei Feng for their enlightening lectures, urban sustainability and the effects of urban generation and environmental destruction is extremely increasingly focused on in China and around the world and on the forefront of government and economic concerns. We really appreciate hearing the insightful research of the two professors and we'll share it will be very useful for like the students research from now on. If any other students have questions, please let us know on WeChat or by email. And if it's okay with both professors, we'll like package it and send it to you guys and you guys can get back to us on that. Yes, so thank you and also thank you to Professor Wu and the rest of the UP office for sponsoring this event and thank you to Columbia Global Centers for streaming it. We really appreciate everybody's support and we hope everybody has a wonderful weekend. Thank you so much. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you.