Barbarians At The Gate

Happy Year of the Snake!In this archive episode from January 2024, we chat with Andrew Stokols, who is researching varieties of digital urbanism globally, with an emphasis on China.We briefly compare notes on the urban development of Beijing in the 21st century, including the contradictions between Beijing as a technologically advanced urban center and an ancient capital city. Andrew also provides updates on the progress of Xiong’an, the digital “smart city” being constructed in Hebei province, as a showcase for Xi Jinping’s vision for urban development. The urban plan was initially unveiled in 2017 to relieve pressure on Beijing and promote the coordinated regional development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, but what Xi has called a “thousand-year plan of national significance” has run into numerous setbacks and controversy.We also hear from Andrew about how the Party is merging Marxist ideology with traditional Chinese culture in recent urban architectural projects, particularly the mammoth National Ar