Joseph H.S. Zhao
Regional Development & Urban Geography
I am Joseph Hongsheng Zhao, an early career researcher and entrepreneurial scholar, based at United Kingdom. Professionally identified as an urbanist-geographer, my scholarly work is situated at the intersection of town planning and urban geography, exploring the dynamics of urban built environment and spatial (in) justice, as well as lived inequalities in regional development. I am currently working as a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Town Planning at the University of the West of Scotland (UWS) at Paisley, Greater Glasgow, Scotland.
In the past five years, I devoted myself in conducting research in migration and urban studies, from fieldwork research designs to fostering inclusive active learning at universities, as well as building research impacts in UK and internationally. Before joining UWS, I worked on an EU Horizon-funded MISTRAL (€3,619,635; 2023-2026) project, collaborating with researchers, architects and medical doctors at UK, Italy, Poland, and Belgium.
I hold an MPhil and PhD from Cambridge, funded by the Edwin H S Leong Hong Kong-Hughes Hall Scholarship, UCCL, and the UK's Henry Lester Trust. My academic journey so far includes working and traveling across 25 countries. Beyond academia, I enjoy communication and synoptical reading in six different languages, rambling across the countryside to investigate historical heritage, and playing the traditional instrument xiao.
Connect with me on Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Scholar, and ResearchGate, or email me via jhszhao@cantab.net for collaboration and consulting opportunities.
On-going Projects
Shiminhua in Chinese Greater Bay Area (GBA)
Paper No2: Aggravated uncertainties, adaptive resilience, and ambiguous positionality: Doing fieldwork in Global South amid COVID-19 pandemic
Paper No3: ‘Never a Local without a Local Hukou': Rural-urban migrants’ perception on hukou reform in Chinese Greater Bay Area
Shiminhua, the prevalently used Chinese policy term have been twisted as a new narrative of displacement for the 150 million rural-urban migrants in the Chinese cities by homogenizing their 'integration' or 'assimilation' experience. My research argued a new conceptualization of the term shiminhua as urbanization of rural-urban migrant that comprised of negotiated urban identity and compromised place attachment based on critical analysis of migration studies and urban theories. Empirical data via in-depth fieldwork from survey, interviews and focused groups collected from the GBA are used to explore migrants' understanding the key institution of hukou (household registration) and testify the index in unpacking shiminhua process.
Paper No4: A New Measurement for Urbanization of Rural-Urban Migrants: Building 4 indicators for shiminhua in Chinese GBA
Educational City
Paper A: Are International Students Living Harder? Comparing rental challenges of British and international students in Glasgow
Paper B: Global Campuses with Chinese Characteristics: A study on China’s Sino-Foreign Joint Venture University (JVU) campuses
The globalized cities are becoming more and more educational owing to the inflow of students locally and internationally. The educational features are embedded in the built environment of housing, university campus designs and other educational infrastructures.
This first study of the Educational City project examines whether the impacts of the 2022 Housing Crisis affected international students more severely in Glasgow, Scotland. By drawing onto existing theoretical and grey literature on rental barriers in the UK and beyond, it highlights the nuanced experiences of both local and international students in Glasgow's housing market during the 2022 Housing Crisis. Using a mixed method, this research triangulates data from 436 surveys and 4 focus group discussions, indicating that while both local British and international Chinese students were significantly impacted by the rental crisis, international Chinese students faced greater challenges due to a lack of social support and asymmetrical information. This reflects institutional inequalities embedded in the current student housing system in the educational city.
This second research highlights the critical role of globalization and transnational education in shaping spatial characteristics on campus planning and design by studying the Sino-Foreign Joint Venture University (JVU) campuses. The analysis revealed that JVU campus planning, design, and development is a negotiated process between the Chinese and overseas partner institutions, while being impacted by Chinese regulations and local authorities. The blended campus ended up maintains a degree of glo-cality that are both acceptable global and local stakeholders.
Commentary Paper
Rethinking Environmental Justice: A daily-access-based approach to historical heritage and natural landscape in Taranto, Italy
This EU Horizon funded (€3,619, 635) 3-year project aims to build an AI toolkit for dynamic health impacts analysis to predict disability-related costs in the aging population in post-industrial communiteis based on three cases studies in Taranto in Italy, Rybnik in Poland, and Hasselt in Belgium. My role as a postdoctoral researcher on this project within the built-environment team focus on investigating the built-environment’s impacts on health of the aging population including aspects of natural landscapes, historical heritages, place, and memories etc. I work closely with UK and EU teams in data processing, policy analysis and mapping studies for this project.
Innovative Teaching in Urban Sustainability
[Abstract coming soon]