Hantao Sun

Born and raised in Hefei, China, Hantao Sun’s (M.R.P. ’23) research focuses on smaller cities that have historically been overlooked by orthodox urban knowledge. Specifically, he finds himself interested in the messiness of everyday minutiae in small towns, the clues of incompliance against hegemony from both beyond and within small towns’ state apparatus, and the epistemological alternatives stemming from small towns towards planning otherwise. His research thus wanders somewhere at the borders of planning theories, human geography, political anthropology, and, hopefully, history in the future. Prior to his doctoral program, he completed his master’s thesis on street vendors in Guanting Street, an informal food street in Hefei. He worked as a current planner at the Zoning Department in Macon, Georgia, where he encountered numerous daily chores at a small city’s government agency. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Land Resources Management from Renmin University of China and a master’s in Regional Planning from Cornell University.