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Xuefei Ren's work on the high-end of the building boom in China brings together the sociology of globalization with the study of architecture and the built environment. Building Globalization treats architectural production as crucial to the material and symbolic ways in which global cities are made. Based on Ren's doctoral research at the University of Chicago, the book draws on fieldwork conducted in Beijing and Shanghai between 2004 and 2008, covering the bull years leading up to the Beijing Olympics. China is now taken to exemplify the geo-demographic shift that has seen developing countries lead current processes of urbanisation. However the Chinese government's attitude towards quanqiuhua chengshi (global cities) and its support for rapid urban growth from the mid-late 1990s represented a striking reversal of official policy which had been to limit the growth of large cities and promote instead the development of small-medium centres (p.11). The re-scaling of state power to metropolitan level in the interests of enhancing urban competitiveness has been an international trend in recent decades. In China this has proved particularly effective in driving urban growth, given state ownership of land and government control over household registration, urban planning and development decisions. Metropolitan governments in China have the kind of ownership and discretionary powers of which the most boosterist western city mayors can only dream. Ren argues convincingly that the processes shaping these cities are increasingly transnational; in particular, the forces that make buildings 'operate beyond national boundaries, as seen in the circulation of investment capital, the movements of built-environment professionals, and the diffusion of new technologies' (p.6). However, while Chinese economic growth may have destabilized a global balance of power dominated by the triad of the USA, the European Union and Japan, Ren's analysis suggests that older core-peripher

UCI delegation participated in first annual NCF summit in Paris 25/05/2012 The Chinese delegation takes a group photo with Lady Barbara, Judge, Chairman of the UK Pension Protection Fund. The first annual New Cities Foundation (NCF) Summit was held in Paris on May 14-16. The summit brought together more than 500 urban policy makers and thought leaders to a three-day conference on global urbanization, with China as one of the core focuses. The mayor of Paris delivered a welcome speech. Other speakers including Gregor Robertson, Mayor of Vancouver; Ron Huldai, Mayor of Tel Aviv; Khalifa Sall, Mayor of Dakar; Greg Clark, UK Minister of State for Decentralisation and Cities; as well as the CEOs of General Motors, Ericsson, Cisco, and Suez gas. The Urban China Initiative (UCI), a partner of the NCF, assisted in organizing the summit by inviting and organizing 16 government delegates, enterprise leaders, and academics from China, as well as designing the plenary session "A Closer Look at Urban China: Towards the Urban Billion." Chinese delegates shared their insights as speakers at plenary and breakout sessions, including: "Securing Investments for the Urban Century: How do we Pay for the Urban Boom," which featured Li Dongming, General Manager of the Urban Fund at China Development Bank Capital, as a speaker. "Hard and Software City," which featured Jonathan Woetzel, Co-Chair of the Urban China Initiative, Senior Director at McKinsey & Co., as a speaker. "A Closer Look at Urban China: Towards the Urban Billion," which featured five speakers from the UCI delegation, including Yuan Yue, CEO and Chairman of Horizon Research Consultancy Group; James Lee, AIA LEED-AP, President of iContinuum Group; Jonathan Woetzel; Xiao Jincheng, Deputy Director of the Land Economy and Regional Research Bureau at the National Development and Reform Commission; and Xie Chengxiang, Deputy Mayor of Huangshi in Hubei Province. "Modern Urban