RSA International Hour

The Urban Agency of Speculative Urbanisation: the Experience of Korea (Hyun Bang Shin)

South Korea’s urban transformation can be characterized by its heavy dependence on what might be termed a “property-based urban development model.” Speculative urbanization, verticalization, accumulation of land rents, and the displacement of poor land users are the key features of such a model, which entails unequal redistribution of development gains in favor of property investors and builders. The role of the (neoliberalising) developmental state, situated nevertheless in the wider geopolitical economic contexts, was influential, nurturing the growth of real estate capital and the middle class that sustained the Korean experience of property-based urban development. The authoritarian developmental state initially turned to the use of state power and oppression to realize the urban development, but eventually resorted to the emerging hegemony of property to sustain property-based urban development under what can be characterised as speculative urbanization.

Between Knowledge and Policy: Policy Research Institutes and Urban Development Regime in Korea (Se Hoon Park)

One of the prominent features of public policymaking in Korea is the extensive role of poliy research institutes at both the national and local levels. Unlike think tanks that are independent in the financial and organizational sense seen in western countries, Korea’s policy research institutes have been mostly established and funded by the government. The national government has been operating a national research institute in almost every public policy area, and the policymaking of the national government has been dependent on the research activities conducted by the institutes. This presentation tries to understand why and how policy research institutes in Korea have played such a pivotal role in urban development policy by taking the example of the Korea Research Institute for Humans Settlements (KRIHS). I will explore the three elements as background of the extended role of policy research institute, which are the knowledge production market, government-institute relations and the urban development regime, and discuss further the the changing role of policy research institute in urban development along with the nation’s social and political transformation in recent years.

20% discount is available for the following book: Exporting Urban Korea? Reconsidering the Korean Urban Development Experience
20% discount is available for the books listed in the Routledge Advances in Korean Studies Series

Speakers:

Hyun Bang Shin, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK

Hyun Bang Shin is Professor of Geography and Urban Studies in the Department of Geography and Environment and also the Director of the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His research centres on the critical analysis of the political economy of urbanisation, politics of displacement, gentrification, housing, the right to the city, urban spectacles, and speculative urbanism with particular attention to cities in Asia. Hyun has published widely in major international journals and contributed to numerous books on the above themes. His most recent books include Planetary Gentrification (Polity Press, 2016), Global Gentrifications: Uneven Development and Displacement (Policy Press, 2015), Neoliberal Urbanism, Contested Cities and Housing in Asia (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), and Exporting Urban Korea? Reconsidering the Korean Urban Development Experience (Routledge, 2021), and Covid-19 in Southeast Asia: An Insight into a Post-Pandemic World (LSE Press, 2022). He is an editor of the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, and a trustee of the Urban Studies Foundation.

Se Hoon Park, Korea Research Institue for Human Settlements, Korea

Se Hoon Park is a researcher and commentator on the planning and politics of Korea cities and is currently a senior research fellow, Korea Research Institute for Human Settlements, Korea. He studied urban studies and planning at Seoul National University and the University of Tokyo. Having been involved in numerous national urban projects in Korea, he has talked and written on urban development, the cultural city, and ethnic places in Korean and East Asian cities. Recently, he has focused on development cooperation in collaboration with international organizations such as UN Habitat, the World Bank, and the Inter-American Development Bank. His publications include “Can we implant an artist community? A reflection on government led cultural districts in Korea” (Cities, 2016), and “Seoul” in The Wiley–Blackwell Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies (Wiley, 2019) and Exporting Urban Korea? Reconsidering the Korean Urban Development Experience (coedited, Routledge, 2021)

Chair: Yu Min Joo, KID School of Public Policy and Management, Korea

Yu-Min Joo is an Associate Professor at the KDI School of Public Policy and Management (KDIS) in South Korea. Prior to joining KDIS, she taught at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore as an assistant professor from 2012 to 2019. She holds a PhD in Urban and Regional Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Master’s in Urban Planning from Harvard University. She researches and publishes on urban development and policy issues in Asia, particularly on the topics of urban governance, smart cities, mega-projects, and mega-events. Her latest books include Megacity Seoul: Urbanization and the Development of Modern South Korea, published by Routledge in 2019, and Smart Cities in Asia: Governing Development in the Era of Hyper-Connectivity, published by Edward Elgar Publishing in 2020 (co-edited with Teck-Boon Tan).

Timings for this webinar:

• 08.00 GMT
• 09.00 CET
• 17.00 KST

The BASIIC program was designed with the goal to mainstream the dialogue on inclusion in urban areas as an outcome of the consultation on “PwDs* friendly smart cities” for the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Government of India in 2018. NIUA with the support for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) of the UK Government is implementing the project “Building Accessible Safe Inclusive Indian Cities” (BASIIC) that intends to formalize the tenets of universal access, inclusion, and safety, with the vision of making the current urban planning practices more sensitive and responsive to the needs of people with disabilities. In line with its goal, the program is currently supporting the cities of Varanasi and Pune to augment their planning approaches, institutional mechanisms, and capacities to implement projects that are more inclusive and accessible.

Ustav Choudhury, National Institute of Urban Affairs, India

Utsav Choudhury currently leads the Building Accessible Safe Inclusive Indian Cities programme at the National Institute of Urban Affairs. Utsav is a trained Anthropologist from Delhi University, India with over 8 years of community, social service, and development sector work. He has a demonstrated experience of working in the sector on human centric projects, which includes implementing various multilateral projects from USAID, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Bernard van Leer Foundation, and more recently the UK-FCDO, with focus on social impact in the urban context.

Timing for this webinar:

• 09.30 GMT
• 15.00 IST

More information to follow.

Heloisa Costa, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil

Professor Heloisa Soares de Moura Costa holds a degree in Architecture and Urbanism from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (1976), a Master’s Phil in Urban Planning – Architectural Association (1983), a Ph.D. in Demography from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (1995) and post-doctorate at the Department of Geography at the University of California at Berkeley (1997/8). She is currently a professor at the Department of Geography at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, having as main areas of research: urban planning, urban geography, public policies and socio-environmental implications. She was coordinator of the Population and Environment WG of the Brazilian Association of Population Studies (2000-2002) and president of the National Association of Graduate Studies and Research in Urban and Regional Planning (2003-2005). Participates in editorial boards of periodicals in the area, including Revista Geografias (UFMG).

Chair: Pedro Amaral, Cedeplar, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil

Pedro Amaral is a tenured professor (‘Professor Adjunto’) at the Department of Economics and the Center for Regional Development and Planning (Cedeplar) at Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil, and Fellow of the Center for Spatial Data Science (University of Chicago, USA). I have a Ph.D. degree in Land Economy from the University of Cambridge and act as co-editor of the journals Spatial Economic Analysis (since 2014), Journal of Spatial Econometrics (since 2019), and Regional Studies, Regional Science (since 2013), and member of the scientific committee of the journal Nova Economia (since 2018). I am the ambassador for Regional Studies Association in Brazil (since 2017) and productivity fellowship awardee from the Brazilian Research Council CNPq (since 2017). I served as Visiting Associate Professor at the University of Chicago (2020), founding chair of the Regional Studies Association – Latin America Division (2015-2017), Executive Secretary of the Brazilian Association of Graduate Courses and Research on Urban and Regional Planning (ANPUR, 2015-2017), and member of the coordination board of the Brazilian journal Revista Planejamento e Políticas Regionais (2015-2017). My research interests are in the field of Regional and Urban Economics. More specifically, my research is based on applying spatial models and multivariate analysis to the study of regional and urban imbalances, mainly concerning health services.

Timings for this webinar as follows:

• 10.00 BRT
• 14.00 BST

The conversation amongst academics, researchers, and economists on the decentralization – development nexus has spiked during the past decade. Much is at stake when speaking of decentralization today. How far can decentralization go in helping nations and regions prosper?  How better are centralized political and economic institutions in absorbing shocks, in comparison to their local counterparts? This talk aims to answer these questions and more. We will unpack the different ways through which decentralization contributes to development and broader politico-economic structures, with a focus on Lebanon and Tunisia. For the Lebanese case, Hussein will speak about the intersection between local public finance (such as spending and revenue structures) and economic development. For the Tunisian case, Chaimaa will discuss the legal and social aspects of decentralization and how those may contribute to a specific regional developmental agenda.

Hussein Cheaito, The Policy Initiative, Lebanon

Hussein Cheaito is a Development Economist at The Policy Initiative, a Beirut-based research institute. His research interests include the economics of decentralization, gender economics, development economics and fiscal federalism. His current research centers on local economic development where he led on the design of a regional firm-level survey, local public finance, and the economic contribution of remittances to development.  Before joining TPI, he worked on diverse research projects focusing on decentralization, government aid, poverty and inequality. He also acted as the Managing Editor of Beirut Today and currently serves as an editorial board member. He recently completed his MSc in Development Economics at the University of Sussex as a joint Chevening, Saïd Foundation, and British-Lebanese Association scholar. He has a BA in Economics with a minor in Political Studies from the American University of Beirut.

Chaima Bouhlel, The Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, USA

Chaima Bouhlel is a Nonresident Fellow at TIMEP: The Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy focusing on decentralization in North Africa. She is an independent consultant based in Tunisia. Over the past few years, her work has focused on the decentralization reforms taking place since the adoption of the Tunisian constitution in 2014, as well as issues of citizen participation, transparency, and good governance. She is also involved in the media scene in Tunisia, where she contributed to two different radio shows, and is currently a collaborator on a biweekly TV show, all related to current affairs, politics and public policy in Tunisia. Chaima holds a B.A. in Molecular and Cellular Biology and a secondary in Government from Harvard University.

Chair: Ghinwa Moujaes, INGENIO Valencia (CSIC-UPV, Spain

Ghinwa Moujaes is currently pursuing her PHD at INGENIO Valencia (CSIC – UPV). Her research is part of an Innovation Training Network funded by the EU’s Framework Program for Research and Innovation focused on the improvement of the EU’s Innovation policy of Smart Specialization. Her research interests include inequality, innovation and public policy implementation. Prior to starting her PHD path, Ghinwa worked as a consultant on Foreign Direct Investment Strategies with public and private agencies in Europe, Canada and the Middle East. She also has a MSc in Local Economic Development from the London School of Economics

More information to follow.

Regions, cities and territories are crucial contexts of transitions. They are locational agencies of change as well as transformed spaces by global forces related, for instance, to environmental sustainability, socio-economic disparities and digitalization.

This International Hour launched by the ROREP and the RSA will address regional development theories, policies and practices at stake in Switzerland in regard to spatial and place-based transition challenges. It will be organized in partnership with regiosuisse and broadcasted live from the “regiosuisse scientific forum 2021” that will take place the 13^th and 14^th of September 2021 in Andermat, Uri-Switzerland.

Speakers:

Christian Binz, EAWAG, Switzerland

Christian Binz is group leader in the cluster Sustainable Transitions and Business Innovations (CIRUS) at the Department of Environmental Social Sciences at Eawag, and an Associate Post-Doctoral Researcher at CIRCLE, Lund University, Sweden.

He received his PhD in Economic Geography from the University of Bern in 2012. Christian is a recipient of the Giorgio Ruffolo Post-doctoral Research Fellowship in Sustainability Science (2015) at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and has worked as a post-doctoral Research Fellow at Lund University (Sweden), UC Berkeley (USA), Tsinghua University (China) and Eawag.

His main research interests are centered on the potential for transformative innovation in the water and energy sectors. By combining recent insights from transition studies, economic geography and institutional sociology, he aims to explore how multi-scalar institutional arrangements hinder or support radical innovation in clean-tech industries and sustainability transitions in key infrastructure sectors.

Discussant: Tina Haisch, board member of ROREP, University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Switzerland

Tina Haisch is a professor and lecturer in Innovation and Space at the School of Business, University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Basel. She is a networker and links the scientific community to the private economy and public authorities. Attracting third party funding (SNSF, Innosuisse, ESPON, Interreg, ESF etc.), managing national and international projects are core responsibilities of her daily work. Tina cultivates the contacts to foreign universities, she is e.g. member of the affiliate network of the Microeconomics of Competitiveness network at Harvard Business School, Boston, MA. Her research is in local and regional economic development with a particular focus on clusters, dynamics of innovation, firms and entrepreneurship, value creation processes, creativity and sustainability. Tina completed her Ph.D. in Human Geography at the University of Basel. She has published articles in the field of economic geography and urban planning in scientific journals, including the Journal of Urban Affairs, Papers in Regional Sciences, Geographica Helvetica, Die Volkswirtschaft etc.

Chair: Daniel Baumgartner, board member of  the ROREP

Daniel Baumgartner (born 1981) studied economic geography at the University of Zurich and did his doctorate on entrepreneurship and its impact on regional development the ETH Zurich and the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL. After his studies, he worked as a Post Doc at the University of Bern and later as a consultant at the private enterprise EBP Schweiz AG on regional development projects. Since 2015 he works at the Federal Office for Agriculture on cross-sectional themes of sustainable development in rural areas.

The research study has the following objectives:

• To assess the impact of COVID-19 and the associated lockdowns on the livelihood and economic status of the households living in slums based on rapid telephonic survey conducted in select cities
• To understand its impact on health and access to health care (especially in events of COVID-19 infection), food security, education, and social wellbeing of the slum dwellers
• To understand the coping mechanism of the households
• To understand the impact of various social protection schemes in mitigating the problem
• To understand the inter-city variations of the impact of COVID-19 and the associated lockdown

Speaker: Debolina Kundu, National Institute for Urban Affairs, India

Debolina Kundu is a Professor at the National Institute of Urban Affairs, India and has over 20 years of professional experience in the field of development studies. She has worked as consultant with, ADB, LSE, IIDS, UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF, UNESCAP, KfW, GIZ, Urban Institute, Washington and East-West Centre Honolulu on issues of urbanization, migration, urban development policies, municipal finance, governance and exclusion. She is currently the HUDCO Chair and editor of journals Environment and Urbanisation, Asia (SAGE) and Urban India (NIUA). She is the Country Investigator – India for the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) Centre for Sustainable Healthy and Learning Cities and Neighbourhoods (SHLC), which is supported by UK Research and Innovation.

Chair: Remy Sietchiping, UN-Habitat, Kenya

Dr. Remy Sietchiping is the Chief of Policy, Legislation and Governance Section within the Urban Practices Branch of UN-Habitat.   He oversees the development of strategic programmes of UN-Habitat including National Urban Policy, legislation, governance, urban-rural linkages, smart cities, metropolitan development and the International Guidelines on Urban and Territorial Planning.  He has coordinated global, regional and country projects and programmes for UN-Habitat in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Dr. Sietchiping has over 25 years working experience in the UN system, academia, private and public sector and NGOs in Australia, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Jamaica and worldwide. He holds a Ph.D in Geography from the University of Melbourne, Australia. He is fluent in English and French.

The webinar will be devoted to the results of Cohesion Policy in Poland in the period 2007-2020. The presentation will be organised around two major issues related to both regional and local scales of analyses:

1. divergence – convergence processes induced by the Cohesion Policy;
2. demand-side (“civilisational”) – supply-side (“development”) influence of Cohesion Policy.

The presentations will relate to macroeconomic modelling (B.Rokicki), econometric analyses (M. Smętkowski) and the sociologial surveys of local governments (G. Gorzelak).

Organised in partnership with the RSA’s Polish Section www.regionalstudies.org/network/poland/

Speaker: Grzegorz Gorzelak, Centre for European Regional and Local Studies (EUROREG), University of Warsaw, Poland

Grzegorz Gorzelak is a professor of economics, specialising in regional and local development, regional policies and strategy building. Until 2016, he has been the director of the Centre for European Regional and Local Studies (EUROREG) at the University of Warsaw. He has coordinated several national and international research projects; the most recent ones are the ESPON TERCO project on territorial cooperation and the FP7 project “Growth – Innovation – Competitiveness: Fostering Cohesion in Central and Eastern Europe” (GRINCOH).

He has collaborated with the World Bank, OECD, DG Regio of the European Commission, and several agencies of Polish and Ukrainian governments, as well as regional and local authorities.

G. Gorzelak has published (as author and editor) over 50 books (several of them in English) and 260 articles. He is Editor-in Chief of a quarterly scientific journal “Studia Regionalne i Lokalne” and former president of the Polish Section of the Regional Studies Association.

Speaker: Maciej Smętkowski, EUROREG, University of Warsaw, Poland

Maciej Smętkowski – associate professor of socio-economic geography at the Centre for European Regional and Local Studies (EUROREG), University of Warsaw. Chairman of the Polish Section of the Regional Studies Association. Author of over 100 publications on metropolisation processes in different territorial scales, instruments of regional policy and cross-border co-operation including books “Regional Development and Regional Policy in Central and Eastern European Countries in the period of transformation and globalisation” (in Polish), “The European Metropolises and Their Regions: from Economic Landscape to Metropolitan Networks and “New economic spaces of the metropolis. Structure, functions and connections of business areas in Warsaw” (in Polish). He has been involved in number of research projects carried-out within research framework programmes of the EU and HORIZON 2020 as well as ESPON Programme (European Spatial Planning Observatory Network). Has extensive experience in evaluation and design of public policies at national, regional and local level.

Speaker: Bartek Rokicki, EUROREG, University of Warsaw, Poland

Chair: Agnieszka Olechnicka, University of Warsaw, Poland

Agnieszka Olechnicka is assistant professor at the Centre for European Regional and Local Studies (EUROREG),  University of Warsaw. Director of the Centre for European Regional and Local Studies (EUROREG). Her professional experience regards research in the field of regional and local development with particular attention given to the knowledge economy issues and innovation-driven development problems. She took active part is several European projects (within EU Framework Programmes, ESPON and Interreg) and many national research and consultancy projects in this areas, also as coordinator. She conducted research in Great Britain, Ukraine and Canada. She has implemented projects commissioned by the Ministry of Regional Development, the Ministry of Science and High Education, the Polish Agency of Business Development (PARP) as well as regional and local bodies. Agnieszka Olechnicka is highly experienced in the analysis of the linkages between science and business using both quantitative (among them rarely used bibliometric data) and qualitative data. Recently she published the result of her habilitation project in the book “Science potential and innovativeness of regions” (2012, in Polish). She is co-editor of the Routledge publication “Universities, Cities and Regions. Loci for Knowledge and Innovation Creation” (2012, in English) embraces the finest papers of the international conference she organised in 2011 together with Network of Universities from the Capitals of Europe UNICA.

This session will discuss the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the northern region of Mexico, one of the most dynamic in the country but also one of the most affected by the closure of economic activities. This region is at the border with the United States, with whom it maintains strong productive ties. The paralysis of the sectors considered non-essential activities generated a pessimistic scenario in the economic performance of cities and states at this border and on the cross-border production chains. The closure of activities generated urgent questions about the impact of the pandemic and the public policy responses. In particular, the effect of the pandemic on companies and sectors of the border states is analyzed.

Speaker: Miriam Valdes, Autonomous University of Coahuila, Mexico

She is a professor in regional economics at the Centre for socioeconomic research, Autonomous University of Coahuila. Her main research topics include economic growth and regional-sectoral economic analysis based on non-parametric techniques and deterministic models, including: data envelope analysis, input-output models and social accounting matrices. She has collaborated in research and consulting activities for various public and private institutions. She currently teaches the subjects of Regional Economics and Efficiency and Productivity Analysis.

Speaker: Alejandro Alejandro Dávila Flores, Autonomous University of Coahuila, Mexico

Coahuilense, with studies in economics at the Autonomous University of Coahuila (in which he obtained the highest average of his generation), the National Autonomous University of Mexico and the University of Paris. His professional activity has developed in the fields of academia, economic consulting, administration of educational institutions and journalism.
He is a National Researcher of the SNI (National System of Researchers, level II), author of various books and articles, particularly in the area of ​​regional economy.
He was Rector of the Autonomous University of Coahuila and currently works as a researcher at the Socioeconomic Research Center of that same institution.

Speaker: Jorge Carrillo, El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, Mexico

He is a professor at El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, Department of Social Studies, and Emeritus member of the National Researchers System. His lines of research include: Labor markets and innovation; Global Value Chains; Multinational Companies and Spin-offs. He is currently collaborating in the project “Impacts of Covid-19 in Baja California companies”, GIDI, Inter-Institutional Research Group; as well as in the project “Social Innovation Process in and around Multinational Companies”, Loughborough University, UK.

Speaker: Alfredo Hualde, El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, Mexico

He is a professor at El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, Department of Social Studies. He is a member of the International Sociological Association and the Mexican Association for Labor Studies. He is currently collaborating in the projects: “Training and Scaling of Mexican Knowledge-Intensive SMEs in the Border Region of Mexico and the United States”, “Migratory, labour and educational trajectories of international return migrants in Mexico”.

Chair: Alejandra Trejo, El Colegio de Mexico, Mexico

Alejandra Trejo is an economist and a professor at the Center for Demographic, Urban and Environmental Studies, El Colegio de Mexico in Mexico City. She is the chair of the RSA Latin American division and an ambassador to Mexico of the Regional Studies Association. Her research agenda reflects significant interdisciplinary concerns about the issues of urbanization, urban and regional economic development, governance and policy.