Dr. Siqi Zheng “Evaluating the Impacts of Major Urban and Sustainability Policies in China”

Summary
Today roughly 700 million people live in Chinese cities. Over the next 30 years an additional 300 million Chinese people are likely to move to these cities. Dr. Zheng will discuss China’s recent efforts to achieve the dual goal of urban economic growth and enhanced environmental sustainability. Both growth and “blue skies” have key implications for urban real estate markets. Dr.
Zheng will discuss her work on urban infrastructure investments and urban planning with a focus on the consequences of new subways, and industrial parks construction. Dr. Zheng will also discuss her real estate research that seeks to measure Chinese households’ rising demand for green cities.. Such demand for quality of life improvements creates incentives for the central government to pressure the urban leaders to mitigate negative externalities, and the local leaders have taken actions suggesting that many Chinese urban residents will live in greener cities in the mid-term future