【CIDEG Academic Seminar No.95】
Title: Urbanization’s Legal System Establishment and System Design
Speaker: Meng Jianjun, Research Fellow at the Center for Industrial Development and Environmental Governance, Adjunct Professor in Tokyo Institute of Technology
Moderator: Chen ling, Associate Professor of School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University
Time: 15:00-17:00, April 12nd, 2013
Venue: Room 421, School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University
Language: Chinese
Organizer: Center for Industrial Development and Environmental Governance,(CIDEG), Tsinghua Universtiy
Bio of Speaker:
Meng Jianjun is a Research Fellow at the Center for Industrial Development and Environmental Governance in the School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University (Beijing, China). He also is an Adjunct Professor in Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo, Japan), and a Faculty Fellow, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (Tokyo, Japan) and a Visiting Fellow, CNRS-EHESS (Paris, France).
He is a specialist for Development Economics, Institute Economics, and Chinese Economy and East Asia Economy Research.
Recently, his research focuses on industrial and regional development in China and Japan, the China urbanization process, the Sino-Japan environmental network, and “A Comparative Study in European Union and East Asia”——Cultural Background and Economics Integration.
Brief Introduction:
The urbanization rate of Japan according to the first national census in 1920 is only 18%, thereafter it was hovering at the low rate of about 20% due to the recession as well as the World War II. Since the economic revival after World War II, from 1946, when Japan enacted the Special Law on Urban Planning, to 1954, when land readjustment Act was issued, the government spent only eight years in law-making as well as system design. In 1955, the urbanization rate was more than 50% and Japan entered into the real era of urbanization. In 1970, the urbanization rate had reached 72%, which was at the same level with in United States and United Kingdom. However, due to the legislative lag and institutional obstacles in the process of urbanization, China’s urban population is just more than a half of total in 2011. Clearly, system designs as well as establishment of legal system play a decisive role in the process of urbanization. This speech will further reveal the intrinsic mechanisms of the formation of environmental policy in the process of urbanization in Japan.