Congratulations to Xuelei Zhang, who successfully defended her PhD in Urban Development & Governance entitled ‘From Dilemma to Balance: Urban Conservation and (Re) Development in the Mainland of China.’ In her research, she explored the crucial field of urban conservation and redevelopment, diving deeper into the delicate balance between preserving cultural heritage and fostering urban growth, addressing an important topic in today's rapidly growing cities.
From passion to PhD
Xuelei's passion for urban conservation and cultural heritage preservation began in her youth. Her journey towards a PhD started in 2018 when IHS academic Laura Quadros Aniche, the previous coordinator of the IHS PhD programme, visited Xuelei's university in China. Laura's encouragement and the exciting prospects of researching urban conservation led her to apply for the programme in December of the same year. Luckily, she received admission and embarked on her academic journey driven by her interest in urban conservation.
Balancing urban conservation and redevelopment in China
In her thesis, Xuelei carefully traced the evolving relationship between urban conservation and redevelopment in mainland China. Her research aimed to find strategies to balance these often-conflicting priorities in rapidly developing nations. She based her thesis on several published papers, using fundamental theories such as policy layering, multi-level governance, and interactive governance.
Xuelei's research revealed that the relationship between urban conservation and redevelopment in China has shifted from tension to a more balanced state, thanks to heritage-led urban renewal initiatives and stronger cultural heritage conservation departments. Despite this progress, maintaining this balance remains challenging in a pro-growth ideological context. She found that the current policy framework is inadequate to support this balance due to incompatible government objectives, resources, and responsibilities, an incomplete conservation system, and a lack of harmony in hierarchical bureaucracy and regional governance.
Additionally, Xuelei identified numerous significant constraints, such as tensions between government-community interactions and internal government dynamics, conflicts between rapid urban development and the incremental nature of cultural heritage conservation policymaking, and friction between state-led conservation efforts and the necessary involvement of community and private sectors.
The gap between policymaking and implementation capacity
As part of her research, Xuelei developed a three-dimensional framework to identify the factors that promote and constrain the shift from tension to compatibility between urban conservation and redevelopment and look at its potential for broader adoption. “While this shift marks a new direction in policymaking, it is not fully supported by current government capacity and interaction patterns. Its success depends on local political structures, particularly government-business relationships, and the divergence of government priorities at different levels.” - says Xuelei about the limitations of her research.
From a practical perspective, this thesis clarifies urban heritage and conservation concepts and summarizes governance modes through a systematic literature review, providing valuable datasets and policy databases for future research. Furthermore, Xuelei integrated theories of social movements and governance with community initiative frameworks, enriching studies on community-initiated urban conservation. “In my thesis, I traced the evolution of urban conservation policies over a century, identifying patterns like drift, stagnation, hysteresis, and adjustment. In conclusion, urban conservation lags behind urban development, and there is a gap between policymaking and implementation capacity.”
“Doing a PhD might be the only chance in your life to find the answers to the questions you are really curious about.”
David Dodman
While at IHS, Xuelei found the multicultural environment to contribute significantly to her academic and personal growth. "The atmosphere in the IHS PhD room is always open and international", she shared, appreciating how supervisors and colleagues always respect each other's cultures. The programme's flexibility also facilitated her integrating academic pursuits with professional commitments, as IHS takes student feedback seriously and implements improvements based on their suggestions. Reflecting on the value of pursuing a PhD, Xuelei quotes Dr David Dodman, General Director of IHS, saying, "Doing a PhD might be the only chance in your life to find the answers to the questions you are really curious about", and expressed gratitude for the peaceful environment IHS provided for her research.
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The PhD in Urban Development & Governance is a 4-year flexible trajectory programme that fuses urban management with governance. Find out more about the programme here.