Following forty years of (often policy-induced) industrialization, it is apparent that service industries (especially advanced services, such as finance, information- and technology-based services) are playing more central roles in urban development within the broadly-defined Asia-Pacific. The pace and far-reaching effects of this recent service growth (or tertiarization) has generated a significant demand for theoretical and normative research that is at the social science frontier for the new century.
This will be addressed by bringing to UBC leading Asian urban scholars and internationally-recognized service industry specialists to
develop a stimulating, interdisciplinary discourse on the three principal consequences of urban service industry growth: (a. new development trajectories, b. changes in urban structure, space and form, c. implications for urban social structure);
to establish priorities for new scholarly investigations derived from these analyses and discussions and
to develop a collaborative approach prior to the preparation of a strategic-level grant application.