From Entrepreneurial to Managerial Statecraft: New Trends of Urban Governance Transformation in Post-pandemic China. Wuhan, China. 09/04/2025.

The event was chaired by Prof. Zhigang Li, Dean of the School of Urban Design at Wuhan University. The title of Prof. Wu’s talk was ‘From Entrepreneurial to Managerial Statecraft: New Trends of Urban Governance Transformation in Post-pandemic China.’ He reviewed the different periods of urban governance in China. Before the global financial crisis in 2008, urban governance reflected typical entrepreneurial features, including selling land to attract investments. The crisis changed the situation and the state started to use financial instruments, including financial platform companies using different financial engineering, to raise infrastructure finance and promote economic growth. While the state also controlled the debt using local government bonds to avoid excessive financial risk. In terms of spatial governance, the state performed re-centralisation from earlier de-centralisation, reflected by large-scale metropolitan area development under the leadership of the central government.

The talk attracted a large number of students and staff and led to productive discussions.

Photo from the WeChat account of 珞珈城乡讲坛