Yue Zhang is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Affiliated Faculty of Global Asian Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Politics from Princeton University and her B.A. degree in International Relations from Peking University. Her research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of comparative and urban politics, with a focus on political economy of development, urbanization in the Global South, metropolitan and urban governance, city building and infrastructure development, and global migration.  She has conducted research in urban settings of a wide range of countries including China, India, Brazil, France, and the United States.

Zhang received the Norton Long Young Scholar Award in 2009 and the Stone Scholar Award in 2010, both from the American Political Science Association’s Urban Politics Section. She is a recipient of a number of distinguished fellowships and grants, with the most recent ones including a residential fellowship from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. in 2015-16, and a “Humanities Without Walls” Global Midwest Grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in 2016-18.

Zhang is the author of The Fragmented Politics of Urban Preservation: Beijing, Chicago, and Paris (University of Minnesota Press 2013; Chinese translation 2018). Her other published work has appeared in The China Quarterly, Journal of Urban Affairs, Cities, Land Use Policy, among others. She has been a Co-Editor of Urban Affairs Review, and Co-Editor of the Urban Life, Landscape, and Policy book series for Temple University Press. She has conducted policy analysis for the World Bank, UNESCO, Asia Urbs, and other organizations on issues pertaining to governance reform, inclusive development, and the welfare of migrant workers.

Book

2013. The Fragmented Politics of Urban Preservation: Beijing, Chicago, and Paris. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Journal Articles and Book Chapters

2020. “Rightful Squatting: Housing Movements, Citizenship, and the ‘Right to the City’ in Brazil.” Journal of Urban Affairs.

2020. “The Urban Turn in Comparative Politics: Cities as the Anchor of Cross-Nation, Cross-Regime Comparison.”  In Finkel, Eugene, Adria Lawrence, and Andrew Mertha (eds.). “Cities and Urban Politics.” Newsletter of the Organized Section in Comparative Politics of the American Political Science Association, 30(1): 13-22.

2020. “Cities without Slums? China’s Land Regime and Dual-track Urbanization.” Cities, vol. 101, pp. 1-13. (with Shouying Liu)

2018. “The Credibility of Slums: Informal Housing and Urban Governance in India.” Land Use Policy, vol. 79, pp. 876-90.

2014. “Governing Art Districts: State Control and Cultural Production in Contemporary China.” The China Quarterly, vol. 219, pp. 827-48.

2011. “Boundaries of Power: Politics of Urban Preservation in Two Chicago Neighborhoods.” Urban Affairs Review, 47(4): 511-40.

2008. “Steering Toward Growth: Symbolic Urban Preservation in Beijing, 1990-2005.” Town Planning Review, 79(2-3): 187-208.

Ph.D. in Politics, Princeton University, 2008
B.A. in International Relations, Peking University, 2002

Beyond the “Slums”: Informal Housing and Urban Governance in China, India, and Brazil. Book
manuscript in progress.

Detroit in China: Postindustrial Cities and Urban Representations in the Midwest and China.
Photo-documentary in progress.

Courses Taught

Introduction to Urban Politics (POLS 210)

Chinese Politics and Society (POLS/GLAS 231)

Theories of Urban Politics (POLS 551)

State, Society, and Urbanization: Perspectives from the Global South (POLS 559)

Comparative Political Economy of Development (POLS 579)