Research exchange between CPRG and a team from Peking University. London. 13/10/2025.

Professor Pengjun Zhao shared his recent research on artificial intelligence (AI) and urban governance. He gave a talk titled ‘AI for future cities’. He introduced how to use AI to inform governance decision making. Based on the quantification of hundreds or even thousands of indicators with big data, AI is able to provide comprehensive reviews on different aspects of urban governance, such as land use, infrastructure construction, and others. The outcomes are key to informing urban planners. Professor Zhao and this team have developed a platform of AI-informed urban data analysis and visualisation, which is welcomed by policy makers and researchers.

Dr Mengzhu Zhang shared her research on urban governance from a more qualitative perspective. She used different theoretical perspectives from political economy, cultural politics, social construction, and others to examine different topics such as urban redevelopment, financialisation, and digtal governance. Her research has been published in the very top journals in urban studies and human geography, such as Environment and Planning A, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, Annals of the American Association of Geographers, etc.

They, together with other researchers in their team, exchanged ideas with CPRG about how to conduct research on urban governance across contexts in the current historic conjuncture.

Photos by CPRG