Second “City Observing” Round Table Focused On New Ideas of City Development

On April 8th 2016, the Second “City Observing” Round Table was held in the International Conference Hall at GDUFS. This meeting was sponsored by Guangzhou Social Sciences Association and GDUFS and was organized by Urban Observation Magazine and Guangzhou International Trade Center Key Research Base. The topic of this meeting was “Scientific Governance: The New Ideas of City Development”.

At the meeting

The meeting was hosted by the Secretary of Party Committee and Chairman of Guangzhou Social Sciences Association, ZENG WeiYu. The speakers at the meeting were: the Deputy Secretary and Vice Chairman of Party of Guangzhou Political Consultative Conference, PING XinGuang; Executive Vice President and Professor of Institute of Public Policy of Renmin University of China, MAO ShouLong; Professor of School of International Relation & Public Affairs of Fudan University, TANG YaLin; the Dean and Professor of Guangdong Academy of Social Sciences, WANG Jun; President of Guangzhou Leafun Culture Science and Technology Co. Ltd. and Executive Director of Association of Creative and Economy Promotion of Guangzhou, DAI Xu; Vice President of Guangzhou GCI Science & Technology Co., Ltd., WU YangYang; Professor of GDUFS, DONG XiaoLin; Professor of Development and Research Center of National Innovative City of Guangzhou, DING JunFeng; Professor of Research Center of National City Innovation of Guangzhou YE Lin, and so on.

ZENG Weiyu hosted the meeting

Attendees were: the Inspector of Propaganda Department of Guangzhou Municipal Committee, YE Min; Deputy Director of Research Office of Guangzhou Municipal Government, LI WenXin; President of GDUFS, ZHONG WeiHe; Vice President of GDUFS, YANG AiMin; Vice Chairman of Guangzhou Social Sciences Association, TAN XiaoHong and the related representatives of colleges and universities, leaders of provincial departments, members of Guangzhou Social Sciences Association and representatives of candidates who wrote the papers.

President ZHONG expressed a warm welcome to all guests

Speaking first, PING XinGuang stressed that Guangzhou should fulfill the responsibility given by the government with promoting crossover collaboration and improving interactive development within the Pearl River Delta region.

speakers presenting his idea (upper left:PING Xin, upper right: MAO Shoulong, lower left: Wang Jun, lower right: DAI Xu)

After this, MAO ShouLong analyzed the urban governance in terms of the theoretical model and evolutional logic, saying that strengthening self-governance, optimizing financial and public-service structures and promoting the administrative integration were the key points of urban governance.

WANG Jun believed that the crux of enhancing the function of being a central city was promoting the capability of centralization and distribution and improving city mobility. DAI Xu pointed out the significance of mutual development of high culture and low culture in the process of urban renewal.

The topic of TANG YaLin’s speech was “Three New Features of Governance of Contemporary Chinese Metropolitan Cities and the thinking of general plans of city transformation”, appealing that individuals should be given the right to enter the city first, and only after that could they enjoy social welfare. After realizing all these conditions, the government should consider diversification of city elements.

In the afternoon, the meeting was hosted by Vice President YANG Aiming. the meeting began with a speech given by LI HuiWu. First of all, he introduced exactly what “City” meant, pointing out that the whole world has already stepped into the era of “City”. Then, he stressed the importance of urbanization in China and gave some strategic emphasis on how to promote urbanization. Also, he described defects of cities in southern China from his own experience, believing that the culture of a city is revealed by citizens’ behaviors and words. At last, he hoped that we could build a beautiful, rich and happy city after positive efforts.

Vice President YANG Aiming hosted the afternoon meeting

Thereafter, WU YangYang introduced the idea of smart city and the ways to build a smart city. She believed that science would make a city smarter and networks would change citizens’ lives.

speakers presenting his idea (upper left:TANG Yalin, upper right: LI Huiwu, lower left: WU Yangyang, lower right: FU Miao)

After a short break, FU Miao, Professor of Guangzhou International Trade Center Key Research Base of GDUFS, gave an introduction of marginal damage of environmental pollution and the industrial strategic choices based on this method. As all the speeches given by specialists came to an end, Chairman ZENG WeiYu handed out awards to writers wining prizes and then, the representative DONG XiaoLin gave a brief presentation of his essay. His topic was urban diseases control and citizens themselves. He attached importance to the meaning of improving quality of citizens and said that a city resembled a university. In other words, citizens would be influenced by the city culture, laws and regulations consciously or unconsciously. Therefore, the educational function of a city must be taken seriously.

ZENG WeiYu gave out awards

Also, DING JunFeng, Professor of Development and Research Center of National Innovative City of Guangzhou, and YE Lin, Professor of Research Center of National City Innovation of Guangzhou, made a statement respectively, expressing their sincere thanks for being invited here and giving their suggestions as well.

At the end of Round Table, Chairman ZENG summarized the speeches given by specialists, saying that she really appreciated the support from every specialist and the elaborate services provided by GDUFS. At last, she emphasized the words raised by professor DONG ----- “A city resembles a university” and expressed her wishes to promote fruitful cooperation to make the city better.

中文报道：第二届城市观察圆桌会议聚焦城市发展新思路