Center for the Study of Urban Dynamics
Kick Off Conference
“Urban Dynamics vs Urban Sustainability”
The question of the relationship between urban dynamics and urban sustainability can be asked in
every major town, in every country, especially when quick growth is at work, like in China today. How
to make compatible the calls for urban sustainability with the intensive rhythms of urban growth? The
answer may lie in a new definition of urban dynamics, which may not be synonymous with urban
expansion. The conference will thus invite Chinese and French experts to offer their vision of urban
dynamics. A vision which may quite fit with the prerequisites of urban sustainability.
Schedule
9 :00-9 :30 : Opening ceremony of the « Joint Research Institute for Science and Society » by
Président Yu Lizhong, Director Jacques Samarut and General Consul of France Thierry
Mathou
9 :30 : Scientific Focus, Ning Yuemin (ECNU) / Yves Winkin (ENS LSH)
9 :45 : « The City Is the Sustainable Development », Jacques Lévy (EPFL)
10 :15 : « Theorizing geographies of Chinese transitional economy: a labour market
perspective », Xu Wei (University of Leithbridge)
10 :45 : Coffee Break
11 :00 : « Urban complexity and sustainability », Pablo Jensen (ENS Lyon)
11 :30 : « Urbanizing Chinese Cities : A Study of Nanjing », Wei Yehua (University of Utah)
12 :15-14 :00 : Lunch
14 :00 : « Urban dynamics and urban sustainability : an impossible marriage or a marriage of
convenience? », Yann Calbérac (ENS LSH)
14 :30 : « “Housing right” and citizenship in the urban renewal in contemporary China: the
case of rural migrants in Shanghai », Zhao Yeqin (ECNU)
15 :00 : « Exploring the factors of urban social structure with an agent-based model », Remi
Lemoy (ENS LYON)
15 :30 : Coffee Break
15 :45 : « The spatial change and revitalization of port city interface : a case study of
Ningbo », Zhuang Peijun (ECNU)
16 :15 : « Nearness dynamics for shopping and leisure : sustainability strategy or impossible
myth? », Sonia Lavadinho (EPFL)
16 :45 : « Disseminating knowledge about urban sustainability: two proposals », Gerardo
Bautista (EAC)
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Abstracts
Gerardo BAUTISTA
« Disseminating knowledge about urban sustainability: two proposals »
The circulation of information has always been a important factor of scientific research. The
international publishing house "Editions des archives contemporaines" is getting ready to
launch an Internet-based platform, focused on facilitating the publication and the access to
scientific content on Urban sustainability. A stepping stone for a future comprehensive
publishing system attached to the Center for the study of urban dynamics.
Yann CALBERAC
“Urban dynamics and urban durability: an impossible marriage or a marriage of
convenience?”
Dealing with both urban dynamics and urban sustainability can appear as a paradox in so far
as these terms seems opposite. But, obviously, city has been sustainable since it appeared
during antiquity thanks to the dynamics they created and from which they gained advantage.
This paper will demonstrate that it is no use trying to oppose dynamics and sustainability in as
much as sustainability appears as the contemporary form of dynamics. Taking account with
this major evolution in urban history, it will first enlighten the present context which promotes
such innovations, then define the new kind of cities that are about to be produced; last, it will
focus on an epistemological reflection upon social sciences and their ability to give tools to
analyse and explain what currently occurs in the cities.
Pablo JENSEN
“Urban complexity and sustainability”
Cities are tremendously complex entities, requiring the collaboration of many disciplines to
understand their dynamics. I will present several studies which illustrate the importance of
combining quantitative approaches and deep insights of social sciences.
Sonia LAVADINHO
“Nearness dynamics for shopping and leisure : sustainability strategy or impossible myth?”
Recent trends call for more dense and compact cities, and we start to witness comeback of
leisure and retail activities to previously deserted and derelict city centres, coupled with the
rehabilitation of monofunctional suburban sectors into more mixed-use areas, embryonic of
fully-fledged centralities where city life may evolve even though away from historical centres.
However, behaviour regarding how and where we spend our free time, and namely shopping
and leisure patterns, are not especially determined by distance alone, but also by other
considerations such as benefiting from an extended range of choice, extra services, more
flexible opening hours and quality of the settings, to name a few.
This presentation will show that nearness comes in many forms, and distance is not the only
way of measuring what is happening out there in terms of accessibility. Because of the
texturing power of walking, time budgeting allotted to this mode versus other modes of
transport is not always what one would expect from a purely rational economics perspective.
The presentation then proceeds to consider which, if any, nearness dynamics may be
promoted as efficient for curbing shopping and leisure-related, mobility behaviour towards
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more sustainable and healthier modes. Examples from Switzerland and the rest of Europe,
Asia and the Americas will be shown to illustrate key concepts in this regard.
Remi LEMOY
“Exploring the factors of urban social structure with an agent-based model”
The aim of this work is to show that rather elementary mechanisms are sufficient to obtain the
emergence of stylised facts in Urban Economics. The use of agent-based computation should
allow us to obtain effects which are inaccessible with an analytical resolution.
Jacques LEVY
« The City Is the Sustainable Development »
There are currently intense controversies about the right attitude toward natural
environnement. In spite of an apparent consensus on the necessity of preserving the
environment, there is a fierce battle between three major paradigms: the agro-industrial, neonaturalist, and post-materialist approaches. The last one encompasses the sustainable
development framework. In this scope, it can be argued that the city itself, i.e. a city that takes
on its urbanity, is the exact expression of the three-pillar sustainable development matrix for
urban configurations.
Yehua Dennis WEI
« Urbanizing Chinese Cities: A Study of Nanjing »
Scaling down the research on Chinese cities is essential to better understand local dimensions
of urbanization. Through a case study of Nanjing, we reveal spatial variations in urbanization
patterns within the city. We employ both global and local logistic regressions to model urban
land expansion by introducing human-economic variables, moving beyond the conventional
studies narrowly focusing on physical accessibility and the environment. We have found that
compared with other fast growing coastal cities, Nanjing remains a relatively compact city.
Logistic regression shows the significance of proximity, neighborhood conditions, and urban
agglomeration in urban land change. The logistic GWR has uncovered distinctive local
patterns of urban growth in Nanjing, shaped by local urban spatial and institutional structures.
A probability surface of urban growth provides a clear scenario of urbanization patterns and
can be useful for decision making. This study also shows the importance of policy studies and
fieldwork in the interpretation of results generated from statistical and GIS modeling.
Wei XU
« Theorizing geographies of Chinese transitional economy: a labour market perspective »
This research is a direct response to the call by Yeung and Lin (2003) for theorizing economic
geographies of Asia, and is stimulated by the heated debate over transitional economies in
economic sociology (Nee, 1989, 1991, 1996; Walder, 1996; Szelenyi and Kostello, 1996; Szelenyi,
2008, Sun, 2008) and cognate disciplines. Geographic space is created through production and
reproduction of social relation (Lefebvre, 1991). When economic reforms were first initiated
thirty years ago in China, the way in which Chinese geographies unfold has since altered. The
egalitarian socialist space, just and even from lofty ideals, or segregated due to urban bias,
was tilted intentionally to promote the spatial practice of “Let some be rich first”. This
transition from socialism to market economy with Chinese characteristics has surely created a
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new economic geography of China. Based on several recent survey data and census, this
research attempts to test a series of hypotheses on how the transformed mechanisms of social
and economic stratification have manifested in geographic space and whether labour market
dynamics that is shaped by new spatial practices has reconfigured the spatiality of the Chinese
economic landscape.
Yeqin ZHAO
« “Housing right” and citizenship in the urban renewal in contemporary China: the case of
rural migrants in Shanghai »
In recent years, Shanghai has witnessed its urbanization. This research begins with the
“housing right”, utilizing a shantytown in Shanghai as a case, to penetrate into the rural
migrants’ housing right in the background of urban renewal. The author believed that, the
massive rural-urban migrants encountered the “collective housing exclusion”. They are often
considered as the most vulnerable group and lack of the possibility of demand and expression
of their benefit. Here, the author proposes the concept of “the fourth group”, and believed
that, this social fact that migrants’ housing right is neglected, on the one hand, depends on the
arrangement of the existent system and policy. On the other hand, it concerns the collective
unconsciousness of the migrant workers.
Peijun ZHUANG
« The Spatial Change and Revitalization of Port-city Interface: a Case Study of Ningbo »
Port-city interface, with its experience of port retreat, deindustrilization, place redundancy and
revitalization, was a particular concern of the last fifty years. The phenomena of port-city
interface revitalization, with its origin from North America in 1960s, now became popular in
port cities in most of the world and now in China. The paper discusses the specific features and
trends of waterfront regeneration on port-city interface around the world, the restructing of the
portcities and the impact on remoulding of the interface area. A case study of Ningbo, a port
city with more than 1000 years of history of port and urban, will be used to illustrate and
analyse the dynamic treands of port-city interface.
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CV
Gerardo BAUTISTA
Editions des archives contemporaines
41, rue Barrault – 75013 Paris – France
Tél : + 33(0)1 45 81 56 33
gerardobautista@archivescontemporaines.com
www.archivescontemporaines.com
Gerardo Bautista, economist, has over 17 years of experience in the management and
development of publishing companies. Former development director for the Gordon and
Breach publishing group and the Overseas Publishers Association, he is currently exploring
and evaluating the financial sustainability of all new means of disseminating scientific content
(Web 2.0, on demand printing, online databases and semantic Web). He is also the founder
and current director of the international French publishing company éditions des archives
contemporaines.
Yann CALBERAC
Université de Lyon (Université Lumière Lyon 2)
CNRS UMR 5600 « Environnement, ville, société »
yann.calberac@wanadoo.fr
http://www.calberac.org
Yann Calbérac is a PhD candidate at University de Lyon (France). His work mainly deals
with history and epistemology of geography, especially about the question of fieldwork and
fieldworking and their importance in the construction of scientific knowledge and geographic
imagination. He has also been being interested in theoretical reflections about sustainability
and environment since he studied the durability of the Romanian forests of Bukovina. He has
created and directed for two years a junior research team at Ecole normale supérieure Lettres
et Sciences humaines whose aim consisted in theorizing environment and sustainable
development in social sciences.
Pablo JENSEN
43 years old, married, one child
born in La Plata (Argentina)
Address : pablo.jensen@ens-lyon.fr
Laboratoire de physique and
IXXI - Institut des Systèmes Complexes
5, rue du Vercors
69007 Lyon, FRANCE
Pablo Jensen is a senior researcher at CNRS. He was trained as a condensed-matter
physicist at Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon and received his PhD in 1990. He has
published more than 80 papers in international journals (Nature, Phys Rev Lett, Rev Mod
Phys) which have gathered more than 2000 citations. He is now the head of IXXI (Complex
systems institute in Lyon, ixxi.fr), which gathers more than 200 scientists from many
domains and institutions. His current research interests include : models of social
systems, with a focus on urban economics (rental housing markets, retail stores
localization strategies...) and scientists' dissemination practices (are open
scientists 'good' scientists?).
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Sonia LAVADINHO
Researcher, Coordinator of the Transportation Center
TRANSP-OR Laboratory (http://transp-or.epfl.ch)
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of Lausanne (EPFL)
EPFL – ENAC – INTER – TRANSP-OR
EPFL ENAC INTER TRANSP-OR
GC A3 498
Station 18
CH – 1015 Lausanne
Tèl: +41 21 693 62 89
Portable: +41 78 855 73 85
Fax: +41 21 693 80 60
Sonia.lavadinho@epfl.ch
http://transport.epfl.ch
Sonia Lavadinho, specialised in anthropology of communication and proxemics, has been
doing research for several years on sustainable mobility issues, namely walking and
multimodal strategies and their respective promotion policies, at the Federal Institute of
Technology in Lausanne (Switzerland) as well as the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Lyon
(France). She is now in charge of coordinating the activities of TraCe, EPFL’s new
Transportation Center, which federates the competences of more than 30 laboratories active in
this field. She has gained a MA. Media and Communication (UNIGE) and a MA in Urban
Sustainable Development (UNIL).
Remi LEMOY
Rémi Lemoy is a first year PhD student at the ENS Lyon / University Lyon 2. He studied
physics at the University Paris XI (Orsay), obtained the agregation of physics at the ENS Ulm
and graduated at the ENS Lyon. After a graduation internship in condensed matter physics
(modelizing spin transfer and spin torque in magnetic tunnel junctions thanks to objectoriented programming) he is now working in Urban Economics on the housing market and
spatial segregation thanks to agent-based models.
Jacques LEVY
(1952-) is a geographer, professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne
(EPFL). He is the director of the Chôros Laboratory and co-director of the Collège des
Humanités.
He has been invited professor in various universities: UCLA NYU, USP (São Paulo),
L’Orientale (Naples), Macquarie (Sydney), and the Reclus Chair in Mexico City. He has been
a fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin. He has been invited as a keynote speaker in
many congresses and conferences throughout the World.
His major concerns are the social theory of space, urbanity, globalisation, cartography, and
the epistemology of social sciences. He has carried out many research campaigns in most
‘North’ and ‘South’ big cities.
He has published in French, English, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian and
Hungarian. Among his more than 500 publications, the following can be particularly noted:
Révolutions, fin et suite (with Patrick Garcia & Marie-Flore Mattei, EspacesTemps/Centre
Georges Pompidou, 1991), Géographies du politique (ed., Presses de Sciences
Po/EspacesTemps, 1991), Le monde : espaces et systèmes (with Marie-Françoise Durand &
Denis Retaillé, Presses de Sciences Po/Dalloz, 1992 ; 2nd edition 1993), L’espace légitime
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(Presses de la FNSP, 1994), Egogéographies (L’Harmattan, 1995), Le monde pour Cité
(Hachette, 1996), the special issue « Nouvelles géographies » (Le Débat journal, Nov.1996),
Europe : une géographie (Hachette, 1997 ; 2nd edition 1998), Mondialisation : les mots et les
choses (with the ‘Mondialisation’ group, Karthala, 1999), Le tournant géographique (Belin,
1999), Logiques de l’espace, esprit des lieux (Belin, 2000, ed. Michel Lussault), Repenser le
territoire : un dictionnaire critique (L’Aube, 2000, with Serge Wachter et al.), From
Geopolitics to Global Politics (ed., Frank Cass, Londres, 2001), Dictionnaire de la
géographie et de l’espace des sociétés (Belin, 2003, ed. with Michel Lussault), « La carte,
enjeu contemporain » (La Documentation Photographique, 2004, with Patrick Poncet &
Emmanuelle Tricoire), Les sens du mouvement (Belin, 2005, ed. with Sylvain Allemand &
François Ascher), the special issue « Eine geographische Wende » (Geographische Zeitschrift
journal, 2005), Penser l’espace pour lire la vieillesse (PUF, 2006, with Pierre Brunel,
Claudine Attias-Donfut, & Jean Morval), Milton Santos, philosophe du mondial, citoyen du
local (PPUR, 2007), L’invention du Monde (ed., Presses de Sciences Po, 2008), The City
(Ashgate, 2008), Échelles de l’habiter (dir., PUCA, 2008), Our Inhabited Space (dir., FNRS.
2009).
Yehua Dennis WEI
Zijiang Chair Professor, Center for Modern Chinese City Studies, East China Normal
University
Professor, Department of Geography & Institute of Public and International Affairs,
University of Utah, USA
Email: wei@geog.utah.edu
Yehua Dennis Wei, professor of international public policy and economic/urban geography at
University of Utah and Zijiang Chair Professor at East China Normal University, is an
economic/urban geographer and development specialist, with research interests in
globalization, urbanization, and regional development in China. He has investigated the
effects of globalization and economic transition on cities, regions, and places, including FDI
location and network decisions, global city formation and restructuring, and regional and
human development. He is associate editor of Eurasian Geography and Economics and author
of Regional Development in China: States, Globalization, and Inequality, and more than 80
referred journal articles, including Institutions, Location, and Network of Multinational
Enterprises in China: A Case Study of Hangzhou, Urban Geography 29(7): 639-661, 2008;
Globalization, Institutional Change, and Industrial Location, Regional Studies 42(7): 923-945,
2008; Restructuring Industrial Districts, Scaling Up Regional Development, Economic
Geography, 83(4): 421–444, 2007; Globalizing Shanghai: Foreign Investment and Urban
Restructuring, Habitat International 30(2): 231-244, 2006; Development Zones, Foreign
Investment, and Global-City Formation in Shanghai, Growth and Change 36(1): 16-40, 2005.
Professor Wei’s research has been funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF),
the World Bank, Ford Foundation, the National Geographic Society, Alexander von
Humboldt Foundation, the Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), and the Chinese
Ministry of Education et al. He has received awards for excellence in research from the NSFC
(Outstanding Young Scientist Award, the highest recognition by NSFC to overseas scientists
and scholars of Chinese descent), Association of American Geographers’ (AAG) Regional
Development and Planning Specialty Group, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, the
Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Society of Chinese American Professors and
Scientists. His professional services include: advisor/panelist for the NSF, consultant to the
World Bank, Chair for AAG’s China Geography, Asian Geography, and Regional
Development & Planning specialty groups, Vice President of Chinese Professionals in
Geographic Information Systems, board member of Asian Urban Research Association et al.
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Wei XU
Zijiang Chair Professor The Center for Modern Chinese City Studies, ECNU
Department of Geography, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, AB, Canada T1K 3M4
Dr. Xu is currently an Associate Professor at the Department of Geography, University of
Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada. He is also a Zijiang Chair (visiting) Professor, East China
Normal University (ECNU), Shanghai, China. Dr. XU taught in the Department of Geography,
University of Guelph between 1998 and 2000 and University of Toronto in 1997.
Dr. XU was admitted into the Department of Geography at ECNU in 1978, where he received
a BSc. in 1984 and an MA in 1985. He started his teaching and research career in the
Research Institute of North American and West European Geography at ECNU in 1985. Dr.
XU went to Canada in 1991 to further his graduate study in geography. He received his PhD
geography in 1997 from the Department of Geography, University of Guelph.
For more than two decades, Dr. XU has conducted extensive teaching and research in China
and Canada on various topics in human geography. His recent research focuses are on urban
and regional development, labor market dynamics and segmentation, resource use and
assessment. He has been involved in numerous research projects funded by the Canadian
International Development Agency (CIDA), International Development Research
Centre(IDRC), Social Science and Humanity Research Council (SSHRC), Environment
Canada, and Chinese Ministry of Education. Dr. Xu has published widely in English and
Chinese Scholarly Journals, including Environmental and Planning A and Journal of Rural
Studies.
Yeqin ZHAO
The Center for Modern Chinese City Studies, Institute of Population Research
East China Normal University, Shanghai, PRC
Yeqin ZHAO, Lecturer of Population Research Institute at East China Normal University is a
sociologist, with research interests in urban development, residential Segregation, internal
migrants in China and Chinese migrants in Paris etc. She has just obtained PhD in Ecole
Normale Supérieure de Cachan in France and East China Normal University. Her PhD
dissertation is “Construction of urban spaces and renovation of a community of Shanghai: The
problematic of migration and social change”, with a long time investigation in a shantytown
in Shanghai, using deep interview and participant observation. During the past three years,
she has published several journal articles, including « Juzhuquan yu shimin daiyu: chengshi
gaizao zhong de disifang qunti » (Housing Right and Citizenship: the fourth group in the
urban reconstruction), Shehuixue yanjiu (Sociological Research), 2008, n° 2; « Nongmingong:
richang shenghuo zhong de shenfen jiangou yu kongjian xinggou » (Migrant workers:
construction of identity in daily life and spatial configuration), Shehui (Society), 2007, n° 6;
« Faguo chengshi shehuixue de yanbian he fazhan licheng » (The evolution and the
development process of French urban sociology -- a summary of evolution of French urban
sociology during 1945-2000), Zhongguo chengshi yanjiu (Chinese urban research), 2007, vol
2, n° 1 etc, and some other articles in some international conferences in Paris, Hongkong and
Shanghai. She has also participated in many research projects, for example, “The institution
of the dispossession of a collective ground in Shanghai” (2002-2003); “Guarantee of public
education rights for migrant workers in Shanghai” (2002-2004); “Life history of the
inhabitants of Shanghai” (2004-2005); “Work and housing in a community of Shanghai:
survey about the construction of the urban society in contemporary China” (2007-2009) etc.
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Peijun ZHUANG
The Center For Modern Chinese City Studies, East China Normal University, Shanghai China
Peijun ZHUANG is a PHD candidate at Center of Modern City Study, East China Normal
University, and an associate professor at Ningbo University. She has been doing research on
plan and management for maritime transportation, logistics management, and transport
geography. Her published papers concern with the relationship of marketing channel reform
and industrial competence, supply chain management, global logistic chain and port clusters.
In the last several years, her research is more focused on port cities, one of the quintessential
elements of the modern China space economy, and China’s frontline soldiers of globalization.
Her PHD paper is targeted at the relationships between port, city and the region in China, and
its dynamics in the context of globalization.
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