At the center of China’s rapid urbanization is land: land leasing provides both current revenue and collateral for future revenue streams. The so-called land finance has paid for massive infrastructure development in particular. This presentation will discuss a confluence of factors underlying land finance and its impact on the production of China’s contemporary cityscape.

Weiping Wu is a Professor in the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation and Director of the MS Urban Planning program at Columbia University in New York City. She also is on the faculty of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute and Columbia Population Research Center. Her research and teaching have focused on understanding urban dynamics in developing countries in general and China in particular. She is an internationally acclaimed urban and planning scholar working on global urbanization with a specific expertise in issues of migration, housing, and infrastructure of Chinese cities. Among her many publications are books "The Sage Handbook on Contemporary China" (2018), "The Chinese City" (2012)," Local Dynamics in a Globalizing World" (2000), "Pioneering Economic Reform in China’s Special Economic Zones" (1999), and "The Dynamics of Urban Growth in Three Chinese Cities" (1997).

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