Dr Jiaping Wu’s Attention Shifts from Shanghai to the Northern Territory
The high rise buildings that dominate the skyline of Pudong, the new central business district of Shanghai located on the east-side of the Huangpu River, have become a symbol of China’s increasing economic prosperity and its integration into the global economy over the past 20 years. On the west side of the river stands the famous “Bund” district, a parade of neo-classical skyscrapers and art-deco buildings which remain a monument to Shanghai’s history as a financial centre and cosmopolitan city in the pre-Communist period. Separated by the gulf of history, these two sides of the river represent two distinct moments in the economic development of Shanghai in the time before and after the central planning period of 1949-1978.
Dr Jiaping Wu, the new research fellow in Economic Geography at the School for Social and Policy Research, has recently shown that the urban development of Shanghai in the post-1978 period has been chiefly driven by huge increases in the amount of foreign direct investment flowing into the city. In a recent paper titled “Globalization and the Emerging Commercial and Office Spaces in Shanghai” (co-authored with Prof Tony Barnes), Dr Wu notes that during the central planning period, the state invested heavily in the production sector and controlled private consumption, a policy that led to an increase of industrial buildings in the residential sectors of the city. But since the 1990’s, this trend has been reversed by the influx of foreign direct investment, which has increased from US$1,380 million during the 1980’s to US$52.8 billion in 2004 alone.
Dr Wu’s research into the urban and regional planning of Shanghai is novel because it draws upon empirical knowledge of Shanghai’s social and economic geography and links it to the planning decisions made by local governments and the entrepreneurial activity of foreign investors. Of key importance is the fact that in 1980 and 1984 the central government introduced what are known as “special economic zones” (SEZs) and “Economic & Technological Zones” (ETDZs) to enable capitalist activity within restricted geographical limits. The introduction of these new zones led to the birth of new cities, a practice best exemplified in Shanghai by the growth of the Hongquai region, which was originally planned as a ‘foreign consulate area’ with an international primary school, only to be transformed by investors into a collection of high-rise buildings. Dr Wu shows that the final outcome was a result of the collaboration between public bodies and private enterprise: “Driven by the interests of both foreign investors (who sought the maximum profits from the development of each land plot) and the local government (who were keen to improve local and commercial office space), the eventual land uses and planning requirements and restrictions in the area were significantly different from those intended”.
Dr Wu’s recent work on Shanghai arises from his time as a research fellow at the University of Melbourne (2005), and also from his PhD thesis which was completed at the School of Natural and Built Environment at the University of South Australia (2004). The thesis was titled “Impact of Foreign Direct Investment on Urban Planning and Development in Shanghai”, and it provided empirical insights into the intra-urban location of different forms of foreign investment and the way that foreign investment, urban planning and local soioeconomic factors have together reshaped the city. Prior to arriving in Australia in 1999, Dr Wu was a lecturer and Deputy Head of the School of Natural Resource and Environmental Science at Guizhou Normal University in China. Dr Wu has extensive teaching and research experience across a range of interconnected disciplines, including economic geography, international development studies, as well as urban and regional planning.
Dr Wu moved to Darwin at the beginning of 2006 to further pursue his research interests at CDU. He is currently in the process of building up his understanding of the Northern Territory’s unique physical and economic geography, as well as its social and cultural aspects. As Australia shift from the ‘old economy’ to a ‘new economy’, the old sources – rural and resource industries for the wealth, on which the foundation of the Lucky Country is based – have shrunk. This will be accompanied by complicated processes of population movement, resource redistribution and as well new industry activations across the nation and within the Territory. What does this influence on the change in economic geographies of Northern Territory? How can communities and governments in the Northern Territory response accordingly? Dr Wu will then be formulating a number of research projects that will fall under the “People, Place and Economy” theme area at the School for Social and Policy Research. Dr Wu’s experience as a researcher, teacher, administrator and town planner will provide a significant addition to the School’s capacity to engage in high quality research and achieve practical social outcomes.
