Shanghai Academy of Social Science Special Seminar
"Global Power City Seminar at SASS"

Institute for Urban Strategies at the Mori Memorial Foundation presented the research findings on the Global Power City Index (GPCI) at a special seminar sponsored by Shanghai Academy of Social Science, a leading think tank creating urban policies for City of Shanghai. Director Hiroo Ichikawa and Researcher Takayuki Kubo were invited to offer presentations and a discussion session with the researchers at SASS and experts based in Shanghai followed.

Date and Time

December 18, 2009 10:00 - 11:30

Venue

Room 115, Shanghai Academy of Social Science

Title

"Global Power City Seminar at SASS"

Presenters

Hiroo Ichikawa
(Dean, Professional Graduate School, Meiji University / Director, the Mori Memorial Foundation)
Takayuki Kubo
(Researcher, Institute for Urban Strategies, the Mori Memorial Foundation)

Moderator

Yihai Li
(Director, International Program Office, SASS)

Commentators

Qiyu Tu
(Secretary General, Center of Urban and Regional Studies, SASS)
Fang Jin
(Senior Fellow, Institute of World Economy, SASS)
Yongjie Sha
(Associate Professor, College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University)
Shih-I Chou
(Associate Principal, Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates PC)
Kazunari Kano
(Vice President, Mori Building Shanghai Co., Ltd.)
Yasuyuki Miwa
(Senior Researcher, Institute for Urban Strategies, the Mori Memorial Foundation)

Following the opening remarks form Prof. Li, Prof. Ichikawa presented the research summary and findings on GPCI-2009 as a keynote speech. While Shanghai has been rapidly developed towards the World Expo, the city was featured comparing to other Asian major cities such as Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Seoul, who are all aiming to be the global hub. Even though Shanghai is still located in the lower position in the comprehensive ranking among these cities in GPCI, the ranking of the economy is already ahead of Seoul. It was noted that the strong indicators in economy will pull up the allover urban aspects of Shanghai in the future.

Next to Prof. Ichikawa, Researcher Kubo presented "Shanghai vs. Tokyo," which is customized for the SASS special lecture, utilizing 69 indicators of GPCI. Profile of each city such as the scale of cities and their population were introduced and the great potential of growth of Shanghai was described. Furthermore, precise comparison of both cities was presented to identify each position relative to the world. Looking into the economy function in which Shanghai proceeds the best, indictors in GDP and total market value of listed shares on stock exchange market are pulling up the score of this field. Meantime, other indicators in economy such as office space per employee and easiness of business are still internationally low, so that raising these score would result in a higher ranking in this field. As well as the economy, other functions were also analyzed to reveal the strength and weakness of Shanghai. Especially, the low number of the registered property right in the R&D function was pointed out as well as the poor level of the working environment in the livability function, suggesting some rooms for improvement. Finally, the worst aspects of Shanghai in the environment function were noted with raw data alerting the need of improvement towards the proper growth in the future.

Institute for Urban Strategies concluded that Shanghai must be maintaining its growth in economy field and it will push up the accessibility score with further infrastructure development. Indicators evaluated high from tourists and expats in cultural exchange and livability fields are also fundamentally strong and will grow more, however, it is necessary to raise the indicators relative to the local residents. R&D and environment are the most important functions need to be reinforced, and attracting excellent researchers from abroad may result in pushing up the environmental aspects.

Following the lecture at HKU, this seminar at SASS focused on the host city Shanghai, utilizing the abundant database of GPCI as done at Columbia University in New York City. Following this effort, a new program to focus more cities besides Tokyo has been set up and it will be covered in the GPCI-2010 research. This seminar was also important in establishing a connection with SASS to do further analysis relative to GPCI-2010.

Related Website

Shanghai Academy of Social Science WEBSITE
December 18, 2009 Seminar Introduction Blog
Whenever Biz China February Issue Featured Article (Japanese) (441KB)