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The Fragmented City:Politics of Historic Preservation in Beijing, Chicago, and Paris

Thursday March 6

12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. Great Cities Institute

412 South Peoria StreetSuite 400, CUPPA Hall

Yue Zhang, Assistant ProfessorDepartment of Political Science, University of Illinois at Chicago

While historic preservation is almost as old as cities themselves, it has become increasingly controversial in modern cities. In this talk, Yue Zhang will present her recently published book, The Fragmented Politics of Urban Preservation: Beijing, Chicago, and Paris (University of Minnesota Press, 2013). Based on comprehensive archival research and more than two hundred in-depth interviews in the three cities, Zhang finds that urban preservation provides a tool for diverse political and social actors to frame their propositions and advance their favored courses of action. The book gives us insights into the complex policy process of historic preservation that intertwines political institutions with interests and inclination, fundamentally shaping the direction of urban development, the physical forms of cities, and the lives of citizens.

Yue Zhang is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She received her B.A. in International Relations from Peking University and her Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton University. Her principal research interest is comparative urban politics and policies with a focus on historic preservation, urban governance, urbanization in developing countries, and globalization. Professor Zhang received the Norton Long Young Scholar Award in 2009 and the Stone Scholar Award in 2010, both from the American Political Science Association’s Urban Politics Section. She has been awarded grants and fellowships from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, and the National Science Foundation of China. She was appointed a Faculty Scholar at the Great Cities Institute in 2010-2011. Besides publishing her book, Professor Zhang’s other published work has appeared in Urban Affairs Review, Town Planning Review, The China Quarterly, among others. She has also been a consultant to the UNESCO and the European Commission on sustainable urban development. Professor Zhang is currently working on a book project comparing the formation and governance of megacities in China, India, and Brazil.

The FragmenTed PoliTics

oF Urban PreservaTion

bei j i ng, ch ic ag o, a n d pa r is

yue zhang