by Xiangming Chen, Director, the Urban Studies Program
Combining and integrating the local and global has been a foundational and sustained central theme of the Urban Studies program since its launch in 2013. This has manifested itself through classroom learning, research, extra-curricular activities, and post-graduation careers in both the Hartford region and far-flung global cities. Below two recent graduates have profiled their own distinctive experiences and pursuits that reflect the program’s local-global orientations.
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Shuyue (Eric) Zhang ‘22
“After graduating from Trinity with a double-major in Urban Studies and History, I started my internship with the Department of Planning and Development in New Britain this summer and completed it very recently. My job was to create a master plan for the Myrtle Street Corridor, an area near downtown with a rich industrial legacy associated with the city’s home-grown company Stanley Tools. Over the past few months, my colleagues and I have discussed various scenarios based on different analyses and considerations of the combined impact of local municipal planning and various sources of funding on an integrated renewal project featuring an innovative energy cluster. My work contributed to a new plan that contains local historical elements, recommendations for streetscape improvements, public housing project renewal, parcel subdivisions, and zoning change proposals.
Urban Studies at Trinity equipped me with analytical skills for tackling interdisciplinary subjects and projects. As I formulated area designs with form-based codes, it resonated with the academic materials and case studies I had encountered in my undergraduate studies, although I had to learn how to use GIS on the job. Through field studies and interviews, I am able to bridge theoretical arguments with empirical evidence and thus enhance the feasibility of the real-world scheme. Bearing these points in mind, I proposed the integration of industrial and residential functions as the principle for a corridor redevelopment project in New Britain.”
– Shuyue (Eric) Zhang ‘22
Taylor Lynch Ogan ‘18
“Everything seems to be related to urban studies. With cities being so critical to innovation, collaboration, and policy, what I learned studying Chinese cities in the Urban Studies program at Trinity helps me form investment decisions in cutting-edge green technology companies. From electric and autonomous vehicles, to facial recognition, to last-mile delivery, cities are the birthplace, testing grounds, and ultimate landscape for disruptive technologies. In college, I attended the China summer program, which took me to Shenzhen—China’s high-tech city and innovation center–where I spent extra summer time researching China’s most innovative technology companies. On campus, I reinforced my international field study experience by learning how Shenzhen’s unique urban ecosystem made its top tech companies such as BYD (Build Your Dreams) highly successful. I studied how these companies have grown and new startups emerge and am now investing in them.
China’s explosive growth has occurred in its thriving metropolises represented by Shenzhen. Technologies born in those cities are where we are finding unprecedented investment opportunities whereas the United States is not innovating fast enough for our investment appetite. Today, innovation is happening at China-speed, and we need to witness and invest where it is happening faster than anywhere else. So, at the end of 2022, we are moving our entire company to where it all started for me: Shenzhen.”
– Taylor Lynch Ogan ‘18, CEO, Snow Bull Capital
Cover photo by Shuyue (Eric) Zhang ’22
