Housing the knowledge economy in China: An examination of housing provision in support of science parks

Little attention is paid in the extant academic literature to the question of housing knowledge workers despite the potential mismatches between housing supply and demand. This paper provides an initial examination of housing the knowledge economy in China, focusing on three science parks (SPs): Zhongguancun (Z-Park, Beijing), Zhangjiang (Z-SHIP, Shanghai) and Optics Valley of China (OVC, Wuhan). It discusses to what extent, and how these three SPs have factored in the housing dimension in connection with the knowledge economy, paying particular attention to housing affordability, location (inside the SPs or outside in the wider city-region) and the mode of provision (market or state). Insights were drawn from documentary analysis and in-depth interviews in the three chosen case studies. Initial evaluation of policies geared towards housing supply in China suggests that the housing question needs to come to the fore in discussions of structural transformation towards the knowledge economy

Housing and capital in the 21st Century

Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century has attracted public, policy and academic attention. Although there is a growing research literature on the formation, distribution, utilization and wider implications of housing wealth there has been little discussion of Piketty’s work in housing studies. This paper outlines and assesses the major contributions of Piketty, including re-emphasizing distribution and political economy perspectives within economics, modelling growth and distribution, establishing detailed long run patterns of wealth change and policy implications. The paper highlights the significance of shifting housing wealth in increasing inequalities in some countries: housing matters in macro-shifts. We also draw out the implications of house price and wealth growth for the balance of rentier vs. entrepreneurial forms of capitalism. If Piketty’s work is important for housing research, we also argue the converse, that housing research findings can strengthen his analysis. The stylized facts of advanced economy metropolitan growth suggest that housing market processes and wealth outcomes will drive higher inequality and lower productivity into the future unless housing and related policies change markedly. Piketty, strong on evidence and conceptualization is weak on policy development and housing studies can drive more effective assessments of change possibilities

Optical illusion? The growth and development of the Optics Valley of China

The ‘cultivated’ nature of the Chinese science parks, against the background of a transitional economy, differentiates them from spontaneous and cooperative Western models, and is a phenomenon deserving close examination. We study the dynamics and features of the so-called Optics Valley of China (OVC) in Hubei, aiming to explore the characteristics of an embryonic local innovation system constructed in a less-favoured region. The results show that institutional factors are the leading forces in a cultivated science park like the OVC. However, along with the shifting focus of the local government, the OVC’s industrial scale has remained small and its industrial chain has remained incomplete. Moreover, the lack of trust and interactions between various components in this innovation system has been highly noticeable. All these features may be seen as warnings to the OVC that a revision of this innovation system is needed in order to avoid the fate of becoming an ‘optical illusion’

A Review of “Housing East Asia: socioeconomic and demographic challenges”, Edited by John Doling and Richard Ronald

No abstract available

Parallelism and evolution in transnational policy transfer networks: the case of Sino-Singapore Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP)

This paper examines the policy transfer process and outcomes outside the occidental context. It extends the voluntary transnational policy transfer framework with an evolutionary perspective and a scalar understanding of space and power at the subnational level. When the Sino-Singapore Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP), a government-to-government collaboration in promoting industrial development, was studied, it was revealed that two parallel policy transfer networks were developed in the early days of the SIP, which were embedded in different scales of governance and pursuing divergent targets. Their relationship affected the policy transfer outcomes for the SIP, and reveals the important governance and temporal dimensions in transnational policy transfers

Microtubules are involved in anterior-posterior axis formation in C. elegans embryos

Microtubules deliver positional signals and are required for establishing polarity in many different organisms and cell types. In Caenorhabditis elegans embryos, posterior polarity is induced by an unknown centrosome-dependent signal. Whether microtubules are involved in this signaling process has been the subject of controversy. Although early studies supported such an involvement (O'Connell, K.F., K.N. Maxwell, and J.G. White. 2000. Dev. Biol. 222:55–70; Wallenfang, M.R., and G. Seydoux. 2000. Nature. 408:89–92; Hamill, D.R., A.F. Severson, J.C. Carter, and B. Bowerman. 2002. Dev. Cell. 3:673–684), recent work involving RNA interference knockdown of tubulin led to the conclusion that centrosomes induce polarity independently of microtubules (Cowan, C.R., and A.A. Hyman. 2004. Nature. 431:92–96; Sonneville, R., and P. Gonczy. 2004. Development. 131: 3527–3543). In this study, we investigate the consequences of tubulin knockdown on polarity signaling. We find that tubulin depletion delays polarity induction relative to wild type and that polarity only occurs when a small, late-growing microtubule aster is visible at the centrosome. We also show that the process of a normal meiosis produces a microtubule-dependent polarity signal and that the relative levels of anterior and posterior PAR (partitioning defective) polarity proteins influence the response to polarity signaling. Our results support a role for microtubules in the induction of embryonic polarity in C. elegans

TAC-1, a Regulator of Microtubule Length in the C. elegans Embryo

AbstractRegulation of microtubule growth is critical for many cellular processes, including meiosis, mitosis, and nuclear migration. We carried out a genome-wide RNAi screen in Caenorhabditis elegans to identify genes required for pronuclear migration, one of the first events in embryogenesis requiring microtubules. Among these, we identified and characterized tac-1 a new member of the TACC (Transforming Acidic Coiled-Coil) family [1]. tac-1(RNAi) embryos exhibit very short microtubules nucleated from the centrosomes as well as short spindles. TAC-1 is initially enriched at the meiotic spindle poles and is later recruited to the sperm centrosome. TAC-1 localization at the centrosomes is regulated during the cell cycle, with high levels during mitosis and a reduction during interphase, and is dependent on aurora kinase 1 (AIR-1), a protein involved in centrosome maturation [2]. tac-1(RNAi) embryos resemble mutants of zyg-9[3], which encodes a previously characterized centrosomal protein of the XMAP215 family and was also found in our screen. We show that TAC-1 and ZYG-9 are dependent on one another for their localization at the centrosome, and this dependence suggests that they may function together as a complex. We conclude that TAC-1 is a major regulator of microtubule length in the C. elegans embryo

Exploring the ‘middle ground’ between state and market: the example of China

Studies of housing systems lying in the ‘middle ground’ between state and market are subject to three important shortcomings. First, the widely used Esping-Andersen (EA) approach assesses only a subset of the key housing outcomes and may be less helpful for describing changes in housing policy regimes. Second, there is too much emphasis on tenure transitions, and an assumed close correspondence between tenure labels and effective system functioning may not be valid. Third, due attention has not been given to the spatial dimensions in which housing systems operate, in particular when housing policies have a significant devolved or localised emphasis. Updating EA’s framework, we suggest a preliminary list of housing system indicators in order to capture the nature of the housing systems being developed and devolved. We verified the applicability of this indicator system with the case of China. This illustrates clearly the need for a more nuanced and systematic basis for categorising differences and changes in welfare and housing policies

Science spaces as 'ethnoscapes’: Identity, perception and the production of locality

Science and technology spaces around the world are, simultaneously, major physical, technological and symbolic forms, key elements of economic strategy, and sites of international labour movements and knowledge transfer. They are thus the product of multiple imaginations, with multiple, potentially divergent, objectives. In this paper, we compare three international science spaces as ‘ethnoscapes’, emphasising the distinctive perceptions, cultures and identities amongst international science and technology migrants and visitors at these sites. This, we contend, sharpens a sense of the ‘international-ness’ of science spaces in various dimensions, given the particular experiences of scientific migrants and visitors moving into different nations, locations and facilities, their roles in constructing international communities, and their navigation of alternative spaces. It also offers insight into the production of contextual (rather than spatial or physical) localities, as international scientists and technologists experience and constitute larger formations, building on their perceptions of varied and interacting science ’scapes

For common community phylogenetic analyses, go ahead and use synthesis phylogenies

Should we build our own phylogenetic trees based on gene sequence data, or can we simply use available synthesis phylogenies? This is a fundamental question that any study involving a phylogenetic framework must face at the beginning of the project. Building a phylogeny from gene sequence data (purpose‐built phylogeny) requires more effort, expertise, and cost than subsetting an already available phylogeny (synthesis‐based phylogeny). However, we still lack a comparison of how these two approaches to building phylogenetic trees influence common community phylogenetic analyses such as comparing community phylogenetic diversity and estimating trait phylogenetic signal. Here, we generated three purpose‐built phylogenies and their corresponding synthesis‐based trees (two from Phylomatic and one from the Open Tree of Life, OTL). We simulated 1,000 communities and 12,000 continuous traits along each purpose‐built phylogeny. We then compared the effects of different trees on estimates of phylogenetic diversity (alpha and beta) and phylogenetic signal (Pagel’s λ and Blomberg’s K). Synthesis‐based phylogenies generally yielded higher estimates of phylogenetic diversity when compared to purpose‐built phylogenies. However, resulting measures of phylogenetic diversity from both types of phylogenies were highly correlated (Spearman’s ρ > 0.8 in most cases). Mean pairwise distance (both alpha and beta) is the index that is most robust to the differences in tree construction that we tested. Measures of phylogenetic diversity based on the OTL showed the highest correlation with measures based on the purpose‐built phylogenies. Trait phylogenetic signal estimated with synthesis‐based phylogenies, especially from the OTL, was also highly correlated with estimates of Blomberg’s K or close to Pagel’s λ from purpose‐built phylogenies when traits were simulated under Brownian motion. For commonly employed community phylogenetic analyses, our results justify taking advantage of recently developed and continuously improving synthesis trees, especially the Open Tree of Life.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/151322/1/ecy2788_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/151322/2/ecy2788.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/151322/3/ecy2788-sup-0001-AppendixS1.pd