Staff profile

As an urban geographer, my research mainly explores urban peripheries and the spatial politics of urban change in China and Asia through the analytical lenses of language, materiality, and everyday life. My current research focuses on three themes: the transformation of urban peripheries, the political economy of urbanism and Global China, and the spatial politics of urban control. The first research stream examines the spatio-temporalities of urban transformation, particularly how the urban has been produced on the dynamic peripheries of Asian cities. The second line of inquiry takes China as a method to examine how and how far “Chinese urbanism” has been produced “glocally.” More recently, after witnessing the intense deforming of the “urban” in Chinese cities, I have been developing the third line of research on the logic of control in authoritarian urbanism.

I am an editor of City, a corresponding editor of the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, and a trustee of the Urban Studies Foundation. I am also keen on knowledge mobilization to make critical urban studies more inclusive, geographically and linguistically. I have founded and been co-editing 城识 UrbanSense, a WeChat-based social media platform that aims to promote critical urban thinking, co-produce urban knowledges, and develop early-career researcher networks. Before joining Durham, I was an Assistant Professor in Urban Planning and Management at Renmin University of China. I also held an SNSF Swiss Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Department of Geography at the University of Zurich.

Qualifications

• PhD, Human Geography and Urban Studies, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK
• MSc, Urban and Regional Economics, Peking University, China
• BA, Urban Management (Yuanpei College), Peking University, China

PhD Supervision

I welcome inquiries from prospective PhD students. Please get in touch if you want to develop a research project focusing on urban peripheries, overlooked cities, language and the city, the politics of urban infrastructures or other related topics.

• Urban geography, critical urban theory, state theory, space and power, urban peripheries, Asian urbanisms

Book review

• Constructing metropolitan space: Actors, policies and processes of rescaling in world metropolises
  Zhao, Y. (2021). Constructing metropolitan space: Actors, policies and processes of rescaling in world metropolises. Journal of Urban Affairs, 43(7), 1042-1043. https://doi.org/10.1080/07352166.2020.1868918

Chapter in book

• Postscript: in-pandemic academia, scholarly practices, and an ethics of care
  Shin, H. B., Jin, Y., Koh, S. Y., Mckenzie, M., Oh, D. Y., & Zhao, Y. (2022). Postscript: in-pandemic academia, scholarly practices, and an ethics of care. In H. B. Shin, M. Mckenzie, & D. Y. Oh (Eds.), COVID-19 in Southeast Asia: Insights for a post-pandemic world (291-306). LSE Press. https://doi.org/10.31389/lsepress.cov.z
• Sanxian: Re-/un-thinking Chinese urban hierarchy with a medium-sized city
  Jin, Y., & Zhao, Y. (2020). Sanxian: Re-/un-thinking Chinese urban hierarchy with a medium-sized city. . Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003126768-3
• Urbanism as a State project: Lessons from Beijing’s Green Belt
  Shin, H. B., & Zhao, Y. (2018). Urbanism as a State project: Lessons from Beijing’s Green Belt. . Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315505855-3

Edited book

• The Urbanising Dynamics of Global China: Speculation, Articulation, and Translation in Global Capitalism
  Shin, H. B., Zhao, Y., & Koh, S. Y. (Eds.). (2025). The Urbanising Dynamics of Global China: Speculation, Articulation, and Translation in Global Capitalism. Routledge

Journal Article

• The production of extended local territory: Topology and the spatial politics of city-region making in China
  Wang, X., & Zhao, Y. (2025). The production of extended local territory: Topology and the spatial politics of city-region making in China. Urban Studies, 62(5), 995-1014. https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980241270959
• Re‐arranging the urban: Forms, rhythms, politics
  Abdullah, A., Cardoso, R., Dasgupta, S., Pati, S., Plueckhahn, R., Shafique, T., Simone, A., Teo, S. S. K., Ye, J., Zhao, Y., & Urban Re-Arrangements Collective, T. (2023). Re‐arranging the urban: Forms, rhythms, politics. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 48(4), 718-744. https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.12604
• Pluriversal urbanisms
  Moreno-Tabarez, U., Acevedo-Guerrero, T., Sawyer, L., Madden, D., Richter, A., Zhao, Y., Baumann, H., & Gibbons, A. (2023). Pluriversal urbanisms. City: analysis of urban trends, culture, theory, policy, action, 27(5-6), 691-696. https://doi.org/10.1080/13604813.2023.2276600
• Overlooked cities: Shifting the gaze in research and practice in global urban studies
  Nugraha, E., Wesely, J., Ruszczyk, H. A., de Villiers, I., & Zhao, Y. (2023). Overlooked cities: Shifting the gaze in research and practice in global urban studies. Cities, 133, Article 104044. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2022.104044
• The urbanising dynamics of global China: speculation, articulation, and translation in global capitalism
  Shin, H. B., Zhao, Y., & Koh, S. Y. (2022). The urbanising dynamics of global China: speculation, articulation, and translation in global capitalism. Urban Geography, 43(10), 1457-1468. https://doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2022.2141491
• Moving the mountain and greening the sea: the micropolitics of speculative green urbanism at Forest City, Iskandar Malaysia
  Koh, S. Y., Zhao, Y., & Shin, H. B. (2022). Moving the mountain and greening the sea: the micropolitics of speculative green urbanism at Forest City, Iskandar Malaysia. Urban Geography, 43(10), 1469-1495. https://doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2021.1999725
• The Informal Constitution of State Centrality: Governing Street Businesses in (Post‐)Pandemic Chengdu, China
  Jin, Y., & Zhao, Y. (2022). The Informal Constitution of State Centrality: Governing Street Businesses in (Post‐)Pandemic Chengdu, China. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 46(4), 631-650. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.13124
• The performativity of the state in China’s land transformation: a case study of Dahongmen, Beijing
  Zhao, Y. (2022). The performativity of the state in China’s land transformation: a case study of Dahongmen, Beijing. Oxford Development Studies, 50(1), 62-77. https://doi.org/10.1080/13600818.2022.2025770
• The porous urban
  Zhao, Y. (2022). The porous urban. City: analysis of urban trends, culture, theory, policy, action, 26(1), 1-5. https://doi.org/10.1080/13604813.2022.2041291
• Jiehebu or suburb? Towards a translational turn in urban studies
  Zhao, Y. (2020). Jiehebu or suburb? Towards a translational turn in urban studies. Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, 13(3), 527-542. https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsaa032
• Folding Beijing in Houchangcun Road, or, the topology of power density
  Zhao, Y. (2020). Folding Beijing in Houchangcun Road, or, the topology of power density. Urban Geography, 41(10), 1247-1259. https://doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2020.1850046
• Whither progressive urban futures? Critical reflections on the politics of temporality in Asia
  Shin, H. B., Zhao, Y., & Koh, S. Y. (2020). Whither progressive urban futures? Critical reflections on the politics of temporality in Asia. City: analysis of urban trends, culture, theory, policy, action, 24(1-2), 244-254. https://doi.org/10.1080/13604813.2020.1739925
• Space as method: Field sites and encounters in Beijing’s green belts
  Zhao, Y. (2017). Space as method: Field sites and encounters in Beijing’s green belts. City: analysis of urban trends, culture, theory, policy, action, 21(2), 190-206. https://doi.org/10.1080/13604813.2017.1353342