The urgent need to comprehend the lived experiences of climate change within the context of urban poverty in the Global South is gaining traction, as even minor climate shocks can have significant consequences for the livelihoods of the urban poor. Southeast Asia, identified as one of the most vulnerable regions to climate change, remains under-represented in the field of urban climate change research. Responding to the call for more local insights, my study will utilize Citizen Dialogues to explore local narratives of urban climate change in Cambodia and Indonesia. By analyzing these narratives, we aim to demonstrate how local understandings reveal interconnections between everyday challenges faced by Southeast Asia’s urban populations and their rising vulnerabilities in a changing climate. This comparative study will highlight how climate change exacerbates these pre-existing challenges, painting a detailed picture of its impact on Southeast Asian urban life.
Funding Source: XJTLU Research Development Fund (RDF-22-02-095), ‘Local Narratives of Climate Change’ funded by The American Association of Geographers
Research Team: Daniel Yonto, PhD (XJTLU UPD)
Project Period: June 2022 – June 2025 (Ongoing)
Assessing capital-based and capacity-based disaster resilience and validating its contextual-specific and scale-specific key indicators: a case study of typhoon disasters in Suzhou
Along with the trend of living with unpredictable disasters, the traditional interventions of public safety and disaster prevention can no longer meet the needs of the sustainable development of our human society. Building and enhancing disaster resilience has become an effective way to cope with and adapt to those unpredictable and unavoidable disasters. Quantifying disaster resilience bridges the gap between theory and practice. Therefore, this project aims to assess disaster resilience from both capacity-based and capital-based perspectives using a set of localized resilience metrics; and propose an initiative way to validate resilience metrics using survey questionnaire data, allowing for identifying context-specific and scale-specific key resilience indicators. The findings are expected to provide a more comprehensive and intuitive scientific basis and strategic suggestions for resilience interventions in China, in response to our country’s strategic plan for targeted measures in the prevention and control of emergencies and disasters.
Funding Source: National Natural Science Foundation of China (Youth Programme)
Balancing Economic Growth and Environmental Improvement: Evidence from the Chinese Prefectural-level Cities
This project analyses the relationship between economic growth and environmental improvement in the Chinese prefectural-level cities. It reveals the complexity of balancing the two goals and examines the impacts of several key factors in driving this process.
Funding Source: XJTLU Research Development Fund (RDF)
Research Team: Qiantao Zhang
Project Period: Jan 2023
Automated Vehicles and Sustainable Cities and Regions: An Sino-US Comparison
Building on the recently published “Automated Vehicles and Sustainable Cities: A Realistic Outlook to 2030” (Wang & Oster, 2020), this project systematically reviews the recent developments in automated vehicle technology capabilities, testing performance, and adoption in the US and China. It analyzes consumer preferences and road-traffic-related built environmental characteristics in the two distinct societies, and explores urban and regional planning and management strategies toward safer and more sustainable road mobility in China and the US.
Research Team: Rui Wang (XJTLU), Chuwen Zhong (UPenn), Shuya Guan (UPenn) … (to be expanded)
Project Period: June 2024 – present
Smart city in the making: how urban entrepreneurialism exploits and harnesses digital platforms in China?
A smart city focused research project is led by Dr Yitian Ren from Department of Urban Planning and Design, XJTLU. This research project investigates how urban entrepreneurialism across different stakeholders bridges, transforms, and leverages the technological forces of online platforms and digital infrastructures to enable smart city experiments and platform urbanism in China. These issues will be examined via in-depth case studies of smart city experiments in three embedded cases: Hangzhou, a socioeconomically-advanced city-region in upper Yangtze River Delta; Chongqing, a centrally-governed vast Municipality in West China; and Guiyang, an emerging hotbed for digital experiment in Southwest China. This research project would provide important theoretical approach through which to investigate how urban entrepreneurialism shape smart city experiments; and enable interurban comparisons between urban regions focused upon the underlying mechanisms and multifaceted implications of smart city experiments. The findings would also generate real-world impact by delivering take-aways for policy practice with regard to better harness digital technologies towards shaping smart urbanism in China and other Global South regions.
Research Team: Dr Yitian Ren
Discretionary Planning and Flexible Mechanism in Urban Regeneration
A collaborative research is led by Dr Yunqing Xu, from Department of Urban Planning and Design and University Research Centre for Urban and Environmental Studies (UES), inquires into how cities, transitioning from rapid expansion to quality-driven renewal, can leverage flexible policies and discretionary planning to transform urban functions, redistribute value, and enhance urban vitality. By conducting institutional analysis and international case comparisons in US, UK, Canada, Japan, and China, it examines the strengths and limitations, applicability, institutional setting and transferability of varied flexible tools including FAR bonus, transfer of developer rights, change of land use types etc. in varied contexts. It puts forward an incentive-constraint integrated model underpinning the institutional design in a newly published book. Supported by experts from UN-Habitat, Peking University, and local planning bureau and planning firm in China, the project paves way for redefining and practicing the concept of flexibility as a critical breakthrough against the challenges of rigidness while ensuring the efforts towards quality renewal in the real-life complexity.
Research Team: Yunqing Xu (UPD & UES, XJTLU), Sheng Zhong (Vancouver Premier College, Canada), UES researcher assistants and PhD candidates
Clean Water, Stronger Communities
A collaborative initiative led by Dr. Daniel Yonto from XJTLU’s Department of Urban Planning and Design is transforming Dambokbun Village in Cambodia by improving access to clean water and fostering sustainable development. The project, “Clean Water, Stronger Communities”, focuses on repairing broken water pumps and engaging villagers in decision-making to ensure long-term success. Dr. Yonto highlights the importance of community involvement: “This project is not just about fixing pumps—it’s about empowering residents and catalysing broader development.” Beyond clean water, the initiative aims to enhance education, livelihoods, and infrastructure, with plans to integrate Generative AI for future solutions.
Supported by local organisations, including the Dambokbun Village Community Development Committee, the project serves as a model for sustainable development in rural Cambodia. By prioritising local participation, it paves the way for resilient, self-sufficient communities.
Research Title: Clean Water, Stronger Communities
Research Team: Daniel Yonto, PhD (XJTLU UPD), Community Training Organization for Development (Battambang, Cambodia)
Project Period: July 2024 – present
Housing Wealth Change and Its Impact on Household Financial Risks in China’s Low-Growth Era
As China enters a low-growth era, home price drops in nearly all domestic housing markets. This project proposes to study (1) how home price changes as housing demand falls across cities and homeowner groups; (2) how housing wealth changes as home value drops across households of different leverage ratios; (3) how housing wealth loss combined with a negative income shock affects the risk of default for different households; and (4) how housing wealth loss affects household portfolio choice and consumption.
The urgent need to comprehend the lived experiences of climate change within the context of urban poverty in the Global South is gaining traction, as even minor climate shocks can have significant consequences for the livelihoods of the urban poor. Southeast Asia, identified as one of the most vulnerable regions to climate change, remains under-represented in the field of urban climate change research. Responding to the call for more local insights, my study will utilize Citizen Dialogues to explore local narratives of urban climate change in Cambodia and Indonesia. By analyzing these narratives, we aim to demonstrate how local understandings reveal interconnections between everyday challenges faced by Southeast Asia’s urban populations and their rising vulnerabilities in a changing climate. This comparative study will highlight how climate change exacerbates these pre-existing challenges, painting a detailed picture of its impact on Southeast Asian urban life.
Funding Source: XJTLU Research Development Fund (RDF-22-02-095), ‘Local Narratives of Climate Change’ funded by The American Association of Geographers
Research Team: Daniel Yonto, PhD (XJTLU UPD)
Project Period: June 2022 – June 2025 (Ongoing)
Assessing capital-based and capacity-based disaster resilience and validating its contextual-specific and scale-specific key indicators: a case study of typhoon disasters in Suzhou
Along with the trend of living with unpredictable disasters, the traditional interventions of public safety and disaster prevention can no longer meet the needs of the sustainable development of our human society. Building and enhancing disaster resilience has become an effective way to cope with and adapt to those unpredictable and unavoidable disasters. Quantifying disaster resilience bridges the gap between theory and practice. Therefore, this project aims to assess disaster resilience from both capacity-based and capital-based perspectives using a set of localized resilience metrics; and propose an initiative way to validate resilience metrics using survey questionnaire data, allowing for identifying context-specific and scale-specific key resilience indicators. The findings are expected to provide a more comprehensive and intuitive scientific basis and strategic suggestions for resilience interventions in China, in response to our country’s strategic plan for targeted measures in the prevention and control of emergencies and disasters.
Funding Source: National Natural Science Foundation of China (Youth Programme)
Research Team: XJTLU: Jinglu Song
Project Period: 1 Jan 2021 ~ 31 Dec 2023
Relevant Links: 台风中的苏州
Balancing Economic Growth and Environmental Improvement: Evidence from the Chinese Prefectural-level Cities
This project analyses the relationship between economic growth and environmental improvement in the Chinese prefectural-level cities. It reveals the complexity of balancing the two goals and examines the impacts of several key factors in driving this process.
Funding Source: XJTLU Research Development Fund (RDF)
Research Team: Qiantao Zhang
Project Period: Jan 2023
Automated Vehicles and Sustainable Cities and Regions: An Sino-US Comparison
Building on the recently published “Automated Vehicles and Sustainable Cities: A Realistic Outlook to 2030” (Wang & Oster, 2020), this project systematically reviews the recent developments in automated vehicle technology capabilities, testing performance, and adoption in the US and China. It analyzes consumer preferences and road-traffic-related built environmental characteristics in the two distinct societies, and explores urban and regional planning and management strategies toward safer and more sustainable road mobility in China and the US.
Research Team: Rui Wang (XJTLU), Chuwen Zhong (UPenn), Shuya Guan (UPenn) … (to be expanded)
Project Period: June 2024 – present
Smart city in the making: how urban entrepreneurialism exploits and harnesses digital platforms in China?
A smart city focused research project is led by Dr Yitian Ren from Department of Urban Planning and Design, XJTLU. This research project investigates how urban entrepreneurialism across different stakeholders bridges, transforms, and leverages the technological forces of online platforms and digital infrastructures to enable smart city experiments and platform urbanism in China. These issues will be examined via in-depth case studies of smart city experiments in three embedded cases: Hangzhou, a socioeconomically-advanced city-region in upper Yangtze River Delta; Chongqing, a centrally-governed vast Municipality in West China; and Guiyang, an emerging hotbed for digital experiment in Southwest China. This research project would provide important theoretical approach through which to investigate how urban entrepreneurialism shape smart city experiments; and enable interurban comparisons between urban regions focused upon the underlying mechanisms and multifaceted implications of smart city experiments. The findings would also generate real-world impact by delivering take-aways for policy practice with regard to better harness digital technologies towards shaping smart urbanism in China and other Global South regions.
Research Team: Dr Yitian Ren
Discretionary Planning and Flexible Mechanism in Urban Regeneration
A collaborative research is led by Dr Yunqing Xu, from Department of Urban Planning and Design and University Research Centre for Urban and Environmental Studies (UES), inquires into how cities, transitioning from rapid expansion to quality-driven renewal, can leverage flexible policies and discretionary planning to transform urban functions, redistribute value, and enhance urban vitality. By conducting institutional analysis and international case comparisons in US, UK, Canada, Japan, and China, it examines the strengths and limitations, applicability, institutional setting and transferability of varied flexible tools including FAR bonus, transfer of developer rights, change of land use types etc. in varied contexts. It puts forward an incentive-constraint integrated model underpinning the institutional design in a newly published book. Supported by experts from UN-Habitat, Peking University, and local planning bureau and planning firm in China, the project paves way for redefining and practicing the concept of flexibility as a critical breakthrough against the challenges of rigidness while ensuring the efforts towards quality renewal in the real-life complexity.
Research Team: Yunqing Xu (UPD & UES, XJTLU), Sheng Zhong (Vancouver Premier College, Canada), UES researcher assistants and PhD candidates
Clean Water, Stronger Communities
A collaborative initiative led by Dr. Daniel Yonto from XJTLU’s Department of Urban Planning and Design is transforming Dambokbun Village in Cambodia by improving access to clean water and fostering sustainable development. The project, “Clean Water, Stronger Communities”, focuses on repairing broken water pumps and engaging villagers in decision-making to ensure long-term success. Dr. Yonto highlights the importance of community involvement: “This project is not just about fixing pumps—it’s about empowering residents and catalysing broader development.” Beyond clean water, the initiative aims to enhance education, livelihoods, and infrastructure, with plans to integrate Generative AI for future solutions.
Supported by local organisations, including the Dambokbun Village Community Development Committee, the project serves as a model for sustainable development in rural Cambodia. By prioritising local participation, it paves the way for resilient, self-sufficient communities.
Research Title: Clean Water, Stronger Communities
Research Team: Daniel Yonto, PhD (XJTLU UPD), Community Training Organization for Development (Battambang, Cambodia)
Project Period: July 2024 – present
Housing Wealth Change and Its Impact on Household Financial Risks in China’s Low-Growth Era
As China enters a low-growth era, home price drops in nearly all domestic housing markets. This project proposes to study (1) how home price changes as housing demand falls across cities and homeowner groups; (2) how housing wealth changes as home value drops across households of different leverage ratios; (3) how housing wealth loss combined with a negative income shock affects the risk of default for different households; and (4) how housing wealth loss affects household portfolio choice and consumption.
Research Team: Rui Wang (XJTLU)
Project Period: 2025-present