Over the past decade, China has been actively transforming the urban fabric of Beijing, Shanghai, Harbin, Tianjin, and other major cities. Russia initiated its own urban renewal programme in 2017. Since then, both countries have accumulated considerable experience in urban planning and heritage redevelopment. However, despite the scale and significance of these changes, no systematic comparison has yet been undertaken of how urban renewal is carried out in practice or of the social outcomes it produces. Our project seeks to address this gap.
The research team at the Centre for Eurasian Studies has been awarded a Russian Science Foundation grant to develop a methodology for assessing the social effects of urban renewal in Russia and China.
Our research project will:
- develop algorithms for analysing social media content and official documents in Russian and Chinese;
- create a geospatial database of urban renewal sites;
- conduct a comparative study of the socio-economic effects of urban renewal;
- design visualisation tools that make the data and its interpretation more immediate, accessible, and useful.
The project aims to develop a comprehensive system of indicators for assessing the effects of urban renewal in Russian and Chinese cities. Designed as a practical tool for architects, developers, urban planners, and public officials, it will support more informed decision-making and improve the evaluation of planning outcomes.
More broadly, the project seeks to overcome language barriers in urban studies and to establish the basis for a genuinely cross-cultural approach to the study of urbanisation.
Project Lead
Igor Khodachek
Principal Researchers
Yaroslav Snarski, Polina Rysakova