Prof. Athar Hussain from LES Gives Academic Report in Center

In the afternoon of November 5, Biweekly Forum, organized by Center for City and Competitiveness, was held in the conference room on 8th floor of Zhongshang Mansion. This forum invited Profess Athar Hussain, Director of Asia Research Center of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), to give academic reports. Professor Ni Pengfei, Director of Center for City and Competitiveness, and his research group members attended this forum.

Professor Hussain’s academic report is “Urbanization from a Comparative Perspective”. He made a comparative research on China and India, discovering that the increased impoverished population becomes a new feature of urbanization, and the housing and the service industry income are catching people’s eyes, and the inequality of income level, living environment and health are what need to be done for metropolis in the process of urbanization. At last, Professor Hussain interpreted the economic development from an urbanization perspective, and believed that the development involved two transitions: 1) transiting from agriculture to non agriculture, which involves urbanization; 2) transiting from low-income service industry to high-income to promote urbanization escalation.

After the report, Professor Hussain talked with all conventioneers about subjects related to his report, made heated and profound discussion on issues like “whether China urbanization rate is underestimated or not”, “path of evolution of different industries in both China and India urbanization process”, “relation between urbanization and economic growth”, and “complexity of China city size and pattern”. This report widens all researchers’ perspectives on relevant issues, and has favorable effects on their theoretical study and academic research in relevant circles.