Past Conferences

UCRN has brought urban China specialists together at several conferences beginning in 1999. These events provide special opportunities for younger scholars to meet more senior colleagues, and for people from different academic disciplines to share ideas and perspectives.

• As the initial step in bringing together urban China scholars, the Lewis Mumford Center and Center for Social and Demographic Analysis at the University at Albany hosted International Migration and Its Impacts on Chinese Urbanization (Albany, May 1999)
• The Urban China Research Network collaborated with the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences and RC21 of the International Sociological Association to organize The Future of Chinese Cities: A Research Agenda for the 21st Century (Shanghai, July 1999).
• A follow-up conference was supported by the University of Hong Kong: Doing Research on Urban China (Hong Kong, Dec. 2000)
• The first conference organized primarily around presentations by UCRN grant recipients, with commentary by senior scholars, was Cities in China: The Next Generation of Urban Research (Albany, June 2002). For more information, click here.
• The Urban China Research Network hosted "Urban Studies and Demography of China" at the annual meeting of the Population Association of America (Minneapolis, April 2003). The workshop aimed to encourage collaborative activities between urban studies specialists and population scientists in order to advance the study of urban demography in China. For more information click here.
• Cities in China: The Next Generation of Urban Research, Continued, was held at Hong Kong Baptist University (Hong Kong, December 2003). Click here for more details.
• Urban China in Transition conference brought together the selected authors for an edited book applying theories of social change to the Chinese case with an explicitly comparative perspective (Santa Monica, May 2004). Click here for more details.
• Cities in China: The Next Generation of Urban Research: Part 3 was held in Hong Kong Baptist University (Hong Kong, December 2004). Click here for more details. Link to photos.
• The final meeting of the Urban China in Transition authors group was held in New Orleans (January 2005). Click here for more details.
• Chinese Cities in Transition: The Next Generation of Urban Research, Part 4 was held at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences (Shanghai, July 2005). Click here for more details.