The budget of each district government of Shanghai for resettlement compensation. More regeneration will happen in traditional downtown areas such as Xuhui and Hongkou. The land-driven urban growth machine remains, while the local debt increases.

The Hongqiao railway station was paralyzed yesterday. The Qingming festival has become another “spring festival rush”. After the pandemic lockdown, it seems that Chinese like to travel more than before?

⁦giulio verdini⁩ and I have co-authored a chapter examining China’s emerging culture-led rural revitalization in intermediary cities. In short, institutionlised rural marginalization hasn’t been effectively challenged by the approach. linkedin.com/posts/raffaele…

Good thread on high Chinese savings by Zichen Wang

While the accident was caused by heavy rain, the risk was warned during a routine inspection last April. Since 2014, China’s highway income cannot cover its debt payments anymore. The cost of the Econ model that relies on state’s over-investment in infrastructure is emerging.

Great pleasure to be invited as a guest lecturer at College of Architecture and Urban Planning at Tongji University, Shanghai. I shared my recent research on Chinese rural dvlp initiative of current administration and gave a lecture on qualitative research method for PhD students

I have always felt that autocracies go after curiosity rather than brainwashing people. Brainwashing implies there is something to be washed; incuriosity eliminates that need.

A planned CBD in Nanjing has been reclaimed to farmland owing to the bankruptcy of developer and resultant abandonment. It’s the symbol of Chinese rampant urban sprawl and financialization mechanism in the past four decades.

Great thanks Lingjia Zhao for organizing such a wonderful session.

Great session on planetary rural geographies by Michael Woods and Chi-Mao Wang Rural Geography Research Group (RGRG) RGS-IBG Royal Geographical Society (with IBG)

Shanghai is 0.6 only. The central state still insists on the ridiculous population growth cap of 25 million. Time to put an end to arrogant top-down planned economy decisions in the name of political calculations. The collapse of megacities spells the downfall of national economy

THREAD: A slew of poor economic indicators suggest China will fall short of its 5% full year target. Despite supportive measures, property market continues its long slide. And officials face little incentive to revive ‘old economy’ to drive growth. open.substack.com/pub/dexter/p/t…

Recently, the State Council, for the first time, report the debt crisis to the NPC. The total state debt has been over “70 TRILLION YUAN” by the end of 2023 (40trillion from local debts). #china #chinadebt

Counterurbanization is probably overstated, but with the shrinking job market in big cities, young people are increasingly returning to their hometown, which may bring new opportunities for the development of small and medium-sized cities.

So honoured to spend time at Tongji University’s Architecture and Urban Planning. Impossible to summarise my experience in China, but so worth it. Thank you so much to Li Zhang, Wenky Li, Dr. Eric Xin FRSA FRGS 🙌 Till next time 🙏🇨🇳

Regarding that 16yrs ago the central govt provided a stimulus package of 4 trillion yuan, a package of 2 trillion yuan will be viewed as negative news for the market.

If China continues to follow a state-investment-driven economic model rather than shifting towards improving welfare and livelihoods, failure can be anticipated. Like COVID, its contradictory and slow policy actions reveals the paralysis of central decision-making institution.