Title: Slums amidst Ghost Cities: Incentive and Information Problems in China’s Urbanization
Presenter：Jeremy WALLACE, Associate Professor, Department of Government, Cornell University's
Moderator: Ciqi MEI, Associate Professor, School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University
Discussants: Zhilin LIU, Associate Professor, School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University
Ke MENG, Assistant Professor, School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University
Time: 2016.6.14 (Tuesday) 14:30-16:00
Venue: Room 421, School of Public Policy & Management, Tsinghua University
Abstract:
Why are ghost cities and slums simultaneously emerging in China? Areas of systematic over-provision of infrastructure and urban services—often referred to as ghost cities—and corresponding areas of under-provision—slums—are both increasingly common. Scholarship has tended to explore these issues in isolation, but their contemporaneousness is why they are puzzling. China’s increasingly complex economy strains the existing political information and incentive structures behind its management of urbanization. Migration and economic transformation complicate decisions regarding the geographic distribution of public goods and services as existing patterns appear uncertain to continue. Local officials face evaluation systems that reward building regardless of demand and overlook the incorporation of migrants into the urban social service network. Coupling these performance metrics with people moving outside of state vision, plans and expenditures fall out of alignment. Relaxed yet persisting discrimination against migrants, land sales arising from fiscal pressures on cities, and quantified targets pushing local officials to build regardless of demand are some forces behind this paradoxical split in China’s urbanization.
Bio:
Jeremy Wallace is an associate professor in Cornell University's Department of Government. His research focuses on Chinese politics. His first book, Cities and Stability: Urbanization, Redistribution, and Regime Survival in China, examines China’s management of urbanization and was published by Oxford University Press in 2014. His current book project, Seeking Truth and Hiding Facts: Information, Ideology, and Authoritarian Rule in China, explores the importance of statistics in Chinese politics. He also hosts the ChinaLab podcast, which discusses current research on China with leading academics.
