On June 13, more than 120 scholars discussed Marxist urban theory and its application in China during a webinar held by the School of Marxism of Southeast University (SEU) and the Institute for the Development of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics.

Yang Shengping, a professor from the College of Political Science and Law at the Capital Normal University, held that we can sort out the academic structure of Marxist urban theory and build the theoretical system for it by working on three theoretic directions: urban politics, urban modernity and urban postmodernity.

Xia Zhujiu, a specially-appointed professor from the School of Architecture at SEU, said that urbanization must be integrated into the process of regional balanced development. Meanwhile, we must be aware that “online cities” are taking shape, and we must let urbanization play its role as the engine for social development.

The new developments of Marxist space theory are highly relevant to urban and social development in this globalized world. Yuan Jiuhong, dean of the School of Marxism at SEU, said that furthering research in Marxist space theory and other relevant studies helps to lay a solid theoretical foundation for a new type of urbanization with Chinese characteristics. It also helps to address the weak links in the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects, and remind us to reflect on the lessons learned during the process of urbanization and strategies for future development.

Wu Tinghai, a professor from the School of Architecture at Tsinghua University, said that China’s urbanization drive has reached a new period of strategic development. Therefore, it needs to start focusing on meeting people’s growing aspirations for life quality. To be specific, we must take it as our priority to build habitable cities and better coordinate the relationship between cities and citizens.

To build a city that satisfies its dwellers, we must change its traditional characteristics. We must pay more attention to social equity and fairness, create ethical values for urban space, and turn the cities in the new era into “humanized cities for the people,” said Hu Daping, dean of the School of Marxism at Nanjing University.