Zijing Zhao

Zijing Zhao is a Ph.D. Student in the Department of City and Regional Planning at Cornell University. Her research lies in the intersection of urban planning and public policy, with a focus on how planners and policymakers muddle through the new political economy of place. She is particularly interested in urban and regional governance, economic development planning, and how local governments respond to complex intergovernmental dynamics. She’s also interested in using big data and spatial modeling to solve urban problems. Her previous research includes analyzing functional and institutional integration under China’s state-orchestrated regional cooperation strategy in the Yangtze-River Delta, evaluating the American Rescue Plan Act to understand local governments’ response to the federal initiatives, and studying intergenerational income and social mobility to understand how place shapes individual outcomes. Before joining Cornell, Zhao earned a bachelor’s degree from Zhejiang University and a Master of Public Policy from the University of Chicago.