The Young Scholars Forum on Public Administration, jointly organized by Tongji University Sustainable Development and New-type Urbanization Think Tank (TJ-SDUTT), Department of Public Administration in School of Economics and Management (SEM) at Tongji University, and the Youth Association, was held in Tongji Building A on December 27th, 2015. The theme of the forum was “Unbalanced Urbanization: System, Structure and Vision”. The forum was hosted by the vice dean of SEM, Prof. Han Chuanfeng, and attended by around 100 scholars in and out of the university, with some famous experts in the field of public administration being the keynote speakers, including Prof. Lu Ming, Prof. Cheng Mingwang, Associate Prof. Zhong Ninghua, Assistant Prof. Yu Ning. Mainstream media, such as Wenhui Daily, Orient Morning Post, Youth Daily, Forbes, and The Paper, will report on this forum.

Prof. Lu Ming from Shanghai Jiao Tong University pointed out in the speech that highly-skilled workers serve as the engine of urban development and they will help to raise salaries and increase population in urban areas. The increase of big cities will improve skill complementation so that there will be not only more highly-skilled workers but also more low-skilled workers in big cities. Skill complementation between highly-skilled and low-skilled workers is not given full play in big cities in China, for which the most important reason is that there exists in big cities a household registration system in favor of highly-skilled workers, which prevents low-skilled workers from flowing into big cities.

Prof. Cheng Mingwang from Department of Public Administration in SEM elaborated the present economic model in China and expressed his optimistic attitude towards the economic prospects of China in terms of “why we should sustain economic growth in China”, “how economy in China has grown”, and “whether economic growth in China can be sustained in the future”. He believed that the source of economic growth in China is optimizing allocation of resources and enhancing human capital. However, at present there are still many problems in the allocation of the resources such as capital, land, and labor, etc., leaving much room for future reforms. This indicates that the source of the economic growth in China still exists and China’s economy still enjoys great potential for development. Urbanization is not only the way to promote the economic growth and transformation, but also the aim of the economic growth and transformation; it is a part of “China dream”.

As pointed out by Associate Prof. Zhong Ninghua from SEM, any policy that restricts the free flow of economic elements — labor, capital, land, etc. — will affect the allocation efficiency of these elements and cause the macro-economic structure to lose balance and every person in the economy to suffer losses. In the past, the flow of commodities, in place of the flow of population, made up for the income gap between urban and rural areas. But now, the effect has gradually worn off; therefore, we should eliminate the factors that restrict the flow of population so as to narrow the income gap between urban and rural areas.

Assistant Prof. Yu Ning from Emory University shared his opinion on counter-urbanization. He noted that in the past decades, the development of the technology of the time-consuming goods like television programs, computer games, web surfing and the low prices that come with it have made people devote more time to these activities. For one thing, this kind of consumption will reduce people’s working time, resulting in a slowdown in the investment and a stagnant economy; for another, it will keep the young people in rural areas at home, engrossed in these activities, with their motivation to go to cities reduced.

(Lu Ming, Zhong Ninghua, Yu Ning, Cheng Mingwang)

In the afternoon, Assistant Prof. Chen Yuanyuan and Assistant Prof. Gai Qingen from Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, and Assistant Prof. Tan Jing from Shanghai University made keynote speeches respectively from the perspectives of education for children of migrant workers, allocation of land resources and productivity, migration from rural to urban areas and urbanization.

TJ-SDUTT is a substantive research institution independently established by and directly affiliated to Tongji University. Taking advantage of the preponderant subjects in Tongji University, such as Sustainable Development, City Planning, Economics and Management, Environmental Science, TJ-SDUTT extensively carries out academic research, provides decision-making advice, and spreads ideas on the important issues of scientific research, policy, and management in the field of sustainable development and urbanization in China and around the world. TJ-SDUTT is mainly supported by the following institutions: Tongji Institute of Sustainable Development and Management, Intelligent Urbanization Co-creation Center for High Density Region, Institute of New Rural Development, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Tongji Institute of Environment for Sustainable Development, School of Economics and Management, and School of Architecture and Urban Planning. As an open platform for presenting research findings in sustainable development and new-type urbanization, TJ-SDUTT aims at serving government decisions, leading public discussion, promoting academic research and relating Chinese stories to the world, focusing on the five fields of sustainable development, new-type urbanization, creative city and intelligent city, urban and regional governance, and sustainable universities. It provides experts’ opinions and latest information about vital and hot issues, publishes articles in journals, periodicals, monographs, books, etc. and has established a special database for sustainable development and new-type urbanization. It has also published high-quality research papers in the world’s top journals, building an academic brand for itself and indicating the academic influence of Tongji University in the meantime. TJ-SDUTT has already made a series of publications including Annual Greenbook for Sustainability of 35 Big Cities in China and 16 Cities in Yangtze River Delta, Blue Book on the sustainable Development of Industrial Park in China, and Green Economy: Theory, Methods and Cases from the United Nations’ Perspective. Besides, it has also established a long-term stable cooperation with the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and other international organizations, and it carries out the Young Scientists Visiting Program (YSVP) globally so as to boost the training of young scientists in the field of sustainable development and urbanization and strengthen the communication among them.

The website for the news release of TJ-SDUTT: https://urbanization-think-tank.tongji.edu.cn