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ICS Lecture: Max Woodworth, "Seeing Ghosts: Parsing China's Ghost City Controversy"

Apartment Buildings in Chinese Ghost City
February 3, 2017
4:00PM - 5:30PM
Mendenhall Lab 115 (125 S Oval Mall)

Date Range
Add to Calendar 2017-02-03 16:00:00 2017-02-03 17:30:00 ICS Lecture: Max Woodworth, "Seeing Ghosts: Parsing China's Ghost City Controversy" The Institute for Chinese Studies presents the "China in Transition" Lecture Series with:Max WoodworthAssistant ProfessorDepartment of GeographyThe Ohio State University"Seeing Ghosts: Parsing China's Ghost City Controversy"Flyer: Max Woodworth Flyer.pdfAbstract: Controversy has arisen in recent years over the creation of so-called “ghost cities” across China. The ghost city term tends to describe large-scale urban areas, sometimes planned as new towns, featuring an abundance of new built space and appearing to also have extremely low tenancy. This article examines key questions related to the ghost city phenomenon, such as: What is a ghost city? Are ghost cities driven by a tendency toward over-supply in housing? How are local-level political incentives aligned to foster the production of ghost cities? Are ghost cities temporary anomalies or structural features of China’s urban-led economic growth model? This talk will assess recent scholarly research into ghost cities and present original findings to show how an excess of urban space may plague certain Chinese cities.Bio: Dr. Woodworth is an urban geographer with a research and teaching background in political economy, Chinese land policy, and resource geographies. His research has focused to date on urban development in coal-mining regions of China’s northwest with an emphasis on the local politics of large-scale land-development projects in resource boomtowns. By examining urban transformation in regions constructed as marginal through national polities and economies, his work re-theorizes the frontier in its relation to multi-scalar flows of capital and city-building practices. His current research projects examine the politics of new-town planning and construction in China, new geographies of energy in China and comparative boomtown dynamics. His work has been published in The Professional Geographer, Geoforum, The Journal of Asian Studies, and Inner Asia, among other journals.Free and open to the public. This event made possible in part by a U.S. Department of Education Title VI grant to The Ohio State University East Asian Studies Center. Mendenhall Lab 115 (125 S Oval Mall) East Asian Studies Center easc@osu.edu America/New_York public

The Institute for Chinese Studies presents the "China in Transition" Lecture Series with:

Max Woodworth
Assistant Professor
Department of Geography
The Ohio State University

"Seeing Ghosts: Parsing China's Ghost City Controversy"

Flyer: PDF icon Max Woodworth Flyer.pdf

Abstract: Controversy has arisen in recent years over the creation of so-called “ghost cities” across China. The ghost city term tends to describe large-scale urban areas, sometimes planned as new towns, featuring an abundance of new built space and appearing to also have extremely low tenancy. This article examines key questions related to the ghost city phenomenon, such as: What is a ghost city? Are ghost cities driven by a tendency toward over-supply in housing? How are local-level political incentives aligned to foster the production of ghost cities? Are ghost cities temporary anomalies or structural features of China’s urban-led economic growth model? This talk will assess recent scholarly research into ghost cities and present original findings to show how an excess of urban space may plague certain Chinese cities.

Bio: Dr. Woodworth is an urban geographer with a research and teaching background in political economy, Chinese land policy, and resource geographies. His research has focused to date on urban development in coal-mining regions of China’s northwest with an emphasis on the local politics of large-scale land-development projects in resource boomtowns. By examining urban transformation in regions constructed as marginal through national polities and economies, his work re-theorizes the frontier in its relation to multi-scalar flows of capital and city-building practices. His current research projects examine the politics of new-town planning and construction in China, new geographies of energy in China and comparative boomtown dynamics. His work has been published in The Professional Geographer, Geoforum, The Journal of Asian Studies, and Inner Asia, among other journals.

Free and open to the public.


This event made possible in part by a U.S. Department of Education Title VI grant to The Ohio State University East Asian Studies Center.