Call for Papers (abstract submission by 30 August 2014)

China’s new leaders have launched the strategy of New Urbanization, pledging to say good-bye to the ‘old
urbanization’ which is often featured by rapid expansion of built-up area and land finance, deterioration of
ecology and cultural identity, and increasing economic bubble and social intension. As one pillar of China’s new
reform endeavor, the New Urbanization, according to the guidelines set by the National New Urbanization Plan
(2014-2020), aims at pursuing a form of urbanization that substantially promotes welfare for people, ecological
sustainability, cultural continuation, and harmonious economy and society for all places and all people. These
have profound implications especially for areas apart from the central cities.
Whereas the central cities have been the locomotives of economic growth and social transformation in the
past three decades of reform and opening and hence overwhelmed the attention of both the government and
academic discussion of urbanization in China, the county territories, which generally mean the agricultural
territory around very much rural towns or small cities, occupy the vast majority of the country. Chinese ancient
wisdom says that “The stability of county territories guarantees the peace under the sky”. In fact, before the
adoption of reform and opening policy, county was considered as the main ground for development and
urbanization. China’s macro urbanization strategy, namely Urbanization Guideline (CHENGSHIHUA
FANGZHEN), had been favoring small cities and towns until even the early stage of reform. Will the New
Urbanization perspective reposition the small cities and towns to the central position?
However, compared with the situation before the reform, today county towns and territories are facing a
fundamentally different spatial-temporal and socioeconomic context. We are in a globalization and
metropolitanization epoch, which seems to have enhanced the core position of the large cities. The development
since the reform also deeply changed the natural and socioeconomic ecology of the counties, where much of the
ecological advantage and cultural identity has lost and the socioeconomic disadvantage become even more
outstanding. All of these raise new and difficult challenges for understanding and speculating today’s county
territory development and planning. To some extent, these challenges are globally relevant to developing world,
no matter at what stages of development the areas are.
The conference aims at bringing together domestic and global experiences and best practices, knowledge and
expertise regarding rural territory development and planning in an updated context. Discussion leading to
constructive planning and policy recommendations is especially welcome. To be concrete, the conference will
discuss but not limited to the following topics of interest:
 New economic, social and governance impetus underlying today’s county territory. What are the
new economic opportunities for county territory, innovative agriculture, services & clean manufactures?
 Envisioning the ideal future for county territory in a transformed context (in terms of economy,
society and people’s life, culture, landscape and ecology, transportation and other infrastructure, and the
territory’s vocation in larger territory and society)
 Understanding the dynamics and shaping the process leading to the new ideal vision. How to
innovate governance and policy for county territory? Is household registration system still the major
policy obstacle for urbanization of rural people, and how to balance the benefit and cost of urbanization

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for rural territory? How to balance the cost and benefit of infrastructure and public facility investment
into county territory?
 How to properly evaluate and enhance the integration of county territory into larger metropolitan
region? What could be the different strategies of urban-rural integration for county territory with
different regional context?
 Understanding and accommodating the new challenges for planning for county territory. How
should the planning be reformed so as to adapt to the dynamic nature of such area? If there are new
visions of county territory, how could they be translated into concrete spatial arrangement and
step-by-step implementation tools?
Selected papers to be presented at the Conference will appear in the Conference Proceedings, and excellent
ones will be published in two Chinese planning journals Urban Planning International and Urban and Regional
Planning Review.
CONFERENCE DATE AND LOCATION
• 29-30 November 2014 (28 November 2014: registration and preconference meeting and tour)
• Nanjing University, China
ORGANIZERS
• Academic Committee of Foreign Studies in Urban Planning of Urban Planning Society of China
• Urban Planning International
• Nanjing University – University Paris-Est Sino-French Centre for Urban, Regional & Planning Studies
HOST BY
• China Academy of Urban Planning and Design
• Department of Urban Planning and Design, Nanjing University
• Institution of Urban Planning and Design, Nanjing University
PAPER SUBMISSION
• 30 August 2014: abstract submission
• 30 September 2014: Full paper submission
You can submit via website http://meeting.upi-planning.org/. Registration is needed for the submission. You can
also directly send abstract and paper to two conference contacts (send to the two contacts simultaneously):
Mr. Jay WU at acofsup@163.com (Academic Committee of Foreign Studies in Urban Planning, China Academy
of Urban Planning and Design, Tel: +86 10 58322218, Fax: +86 10 58322210)
Dr. Jianxi FENG at jxfup@nju.edu.cn (Department of Urban Planning and Design, Nanjing University, Tel/Fax:
+86 25 83686002)
PAPER FORMAT
• A4 paper, Times New Roman typeface in 11 point pitch, single spacing and text should be justified across
whole page width
• Normally 4000-6000 words total, including figures, tables, references, and appendices
• Covering page of the manuscript should only contain (and in the order): the title of the paper, the name(s)
of the author(s), his/her/their institutional affiliation(s), an abstract of up to 150 words & up to five keywords