I-Chun Catherine Chang on The Spatial Circulation and Local Variegation of Sustainable Urbanism Models
On 20-October, I-Chun Catherine Chang shared her work on the Economy of the Ecocity as part of the 2021 Fall Urbanism Lecture Series, co-hosted by the City Design & Development Program (CDD), SMArchS Urbanism Program, and Norman B. Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism at MIT. Catherine Chang, Associate Professor at the Geography Department, Macalester College, is an urban and economic geographer, whose current research tackles the financing and financialization of sustainable urbanism production, the inequality implications of Asian green urban projects, and the role of transnational sustainable urban planners in policy exchanges.
During the lecture Catherine Chang examined the relationship between the ecocity, the smart city and globalism; in particular, the mechanisms by which the ecocity model can be used to establish new “global cities”, unpacking the integrated economic practices that make possible the sale and distribution of the Ecocity. Catherine questioned how the ecocity became marketable and how the economy of “ecocity” and “sustainable urbanism” emerged.
Catherine Chang explored what makes the Ecocity model successful; economically, contemporary global cities are looking to maintain or establish financial sustainability. Large scale developers are taking advantage of these sentiments, exporting complete packages to cities and governments who seek to generate alternative modes of income as industry and capital shifts. Catherine outlines the process of delivering this model to nation and state level players, including “study trips” and systems of standardization and ranking to encourage incorporation.
Learn more about Catherine Chang’s research:
Chang, I-Chun Catherine. “Failure Matters: Reassembling Eco-Urbanism in a Globalizing China.” Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 49, no. 8 (August 2017): 1719–42. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X16685092.
Chang, I-Chun Catherine. “Livelihood Transitions During China’s Ecological Urbanization: An Ethnographic Observation.” In Remaking Sustainable Urbanism: Space, Scale and Governance in the New Urban Era, edited by Xiaoling Zhang, 161–83. Singapore: Springer Singapore, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3350-7_9.
Chang, I-Chun Catherine, Sue-Ching Jou, and Ming-Kuang Chung. “Provincialising Smart Urbanism in Taipei: The Smart City as a Strategy for Urban Regime Transition.” Urban Studies 58, no. 3 (February 2021): 559–80. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098020947908.
By Joris Komen, Norman B. (1938) and Muriel Leventhal Fellow, Norman B. Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism
