Gown and town : university spatial development and urban transformation in the knowledge society. The case of Shanghai

In the past few decades, we have seen an increasing and even the leading role of universities in urban development. Universities are involved actively in providing public service besides their traditional activities in teaching and research. The cities, as the hosting place of universities, are gradually transformed by the increasing engagement of universities in territorial adjustment, economic restructuring, and institutional improvement. The relationship between the university and the city has great influence on the space of university and is vividly reflected in the process of university spatial development – the spatial practices of universities that embrace the particular locations and spatial sets characteristic of the social formation, the representations of space that are tied to the relations of production and to the order those relations impose, the representational spaces that are linked to the clandestine or underground side of social life. This research will examine the changing town-gown relations in the knowledge society by exploring the dynamic between university spatial development and urban transformation. The research is focused on the global scenario about university engagement and takes into consideration theories and discourses about the production of space, the knowledge society, global cities, state-market dialectics, and urbanization. Cognition about the university is approached from both a socio-spatial perspective and a spatio-temporal perspective. The socio-spatial interpretation is focused on the role of universities in the knowledge society while the spatio-temporal interpretation examines the evolution of universities in the Chinese history. Analysis in the research is carried out at three scales – global, national and local – which are related, interpenetrating, and frequently influencing each other. Analysis at each scale is guided by a coding paradigm: the conditions of university spatial development, the actions/interactions of related actors in the development process, and the consequences of university spatial development. The research chooses China’s leading metropolis – Shanghai – as an empirical focus, with two university sites as sub-units: Tongji Creative Cluster and Songjiang University Town, which manifest two different typical modes of university spatial development in China. The research concludes that the university is relevant to the city by shaping urban morphology through new knowledge-intensive spaces, changing urban governance through the interaction with public authorities, and promoting urban competitiveness through intangible capital accumulation. University spatial development is both influencing and influenced by urban transformation. Conditions of university spatial development include the rise of the knowledge society, the balance between the state and the market in higher education provision, knowledge-driven urban socio-economic restructuring and so on. The space of universities is developed by building extensive networks among themselves as well as with governments, industries, and other urban actors on the one side, and on the other side by selecting favorite places, either global or native, for strategic localization. It is developed beyond the harness of intellectual properties and incorporating broader activities, such as university real estate development and reorganization of university governance modes. It can be developed in a top-down or bottom-up way, or mixed with both. University spatial development contributes to urban transformation in geographical, economic, political, and cultural dimensions, to different extents and in different historical and social conditions. By exploring the dynamic between university spatial development and urban transformation, the research recognizes the tensions in the university-city interaction and proposes spatial strategies for mutually beneficial town-gown relations. Considering the levels of the social formation of the space of university, both the tensions and the strategies are recognized from three aspects: the urban universities’ spatial orientation and practices, the relations and orders established in the process, and the underpinning culturally embedded symbols and values. Tensions and barriers exist in the paradigm of the so-called ‘urban’ university along with ‘de-urban’ trends, the misalignment between university plans and urban strategies, the conflicts among stakeholders nestled in the space of university, the confusion about the role of university and the effectiveness of its engagement in local development. Spatial strategies are proposed to align university spatial development with the changing social environment through appropriate university networks and incremental planning, to establish long-term partnerships among stakeholders in the process of university spatial development by introducing a cultural approach and institutionalizing successful experiences, to keep a systematic perspective on the role of university in local development by placing university spatial development in an innovation system and contributing university spatial development to the third mission (social engagement) as well as to the first (education) and second missions (research).

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