Sainan Lin: From Redevelopment to Co-Production — Urban Renewal and Community Governance in China

Abstract

This lecture examines China's evolving urban renewal regime through the lens of the Jianghanli Community in Wuhan. Situated within the shift toward stock-based urbanization, it traces the transition from state entrepreneurial redevelopment to forms of collaborative governance and emotional co-production. Drawing on mixed-method fieldwork and survey data, the study highlights how institutional design and social capital mediate residents' emotional reconstruction within a state-embedded framework. Rather than presenting a finalized model of sustainable regeneration, the Jianghanli case invites debate on whether such state-enabled co-production can balance efficiency, participation, and genuine community rebuilding in post-redevelopment China.

Biography

Sainan Lin is a Professor and Associate Chair of the Department of Urban and Rural Planning at the School of Urban Design, Wuhan University, People's Republic of China, and is currently a visiting scholar at Cornell University's College of Architecture, Art, and Planning (AAP). She received her Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She serves as an Associate Editor of the Journal of Rural Studies and a board member of Growth and Change. She sits on several academic committees, including the Young Geographers Committee and the Cultural Geographers Committee of the Geographical Society of China. Her research examines migration, residential mobility, social integration, and urban governance in China. She is the principal investigator of three projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China. She has published more than 60 articles in leading academic journals, as well as two books.