China Planning Network (CPN)
China Week 2008 Transport Conference / Closing Remarks
Commissioner's Remarks
Dear Friends of China Planning Network, Ladies and Gentlemen:
Good morning!
Welcome to the 2009 CPN Urban Transport Conference.
The group of CPN speakers went to Chengdu in the past two days. The 2nd days was the CPN Roundtable with Chengdu Transport Commission, which serves well as the introduction to today's transport conference.
There are four sessions in today's conference: plenary session chaired by Prof. Ralph Gakenheimer from MIT, transport policy and planning session chaired by Prof. Robert Cervero from UC Berkeley, transport finance and partnership session chaired by Mr. Larry Hannah from the World Bank, and the transport and urban structure session chaired by Prof. Klaus Kunzmann from University of Dortmund.
In the first few days of the CPN China Week I have been emphasizing the contribution from the west scholarship to China. Now I want to point out the importance of the opposite direction. China is a dynamic system, concentrated with the latest development and challenges in urban transportation. China provides with the research chances these development has brought to the world’s academic community, and the opportunities that technology advances can be experimented and policy innovations can be implemented.
I would like to offer a thank-you and make a request.
I thank the audiences for sticking to the last day of the CPN China Week and hope the conference today will be worth your while. I thank all the speakers. People come to China for different reasons: some want to tour round China; some have business to deal with; and many care about China and want to help. I also thank qq.com for transforming this conference room into a TV studio and broadcasting today's conference alive to 30m online audience.
i would like to request
- each session chair to summarize the ideas being exchanged and generated in your session in 1~2 pages, which we will publish online with all the papers and ppts
- all speakers to send us your comments and suggestions, both in terms of the contents and the format of the conferences
- all audiences to let us know a) is this useful? what do western scholars know, and what don't they know? b) what can we learn from the west? the research method, the research conclusion, and/or the research attitude? c) what are the gaps? Often when the Chinese practices raise a question, western scholarship cannot offer an answer. That's the exactly reason for CPN's goal of cultivating China's own discourse on urban development and planning.
Thank you!
Now, I will invite the two keynote speakers to the stage: Mr. Bernard Cohen, Secretary of Transport, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and Prof. Robert Cervero
from UC Berkeley. I will ask Prof. Hugo Priemus from TU Delft to commentate, and Prof. Ralph Gakenheimer from MIT to chair the session.
Jinhua Zhao
Executive Commissioner
China Planning Network |