Fall 2018 seminar: M.R.P. candidate, city and regional planning
Grace Zhou is a second-year master’s student in city and regional planning. Originally from China, she did her undergrad at the University of Hong Kong, majoring in economics, with extensive interests in landscape studies, cultural geography, sociology, art history, and political philosophy. Before coming to Cornell, she did quite a few research assistantships in landscape architecture and cultural geography, carrying out mapping and field research on various villages in Guangzhou, China, in the face of ever-shifting urbanization, as well as archival research and site mapping of gold mining in Johannesburg, South Africa. In doing cultural geography, she conducted her own independent study on the waterfront in Hong Kong and the symbolic meanings behind a politicized space. At Cornell, she carried on with research assistantships in city and regional planning and government. Last summer, she did some field research as part of a summer program in Shangri-la, Yunnan, China. For future goals, she looks forward to doing research on Chinese urbanism, possibly into topics including urban regeneration (including gentrification), urban political economy, neoliberal urbanism, and public space. She hopes to pay attention to larger frameworks and macro conditions, as well as smaller-scale processes and individual lived experiences.