The ivory tower in China’s speculative urbanism: instrumentalizing the university-healthcare nexus

This research investigates how the public university engages in China's speculative urbanism by establishing and operationalizing the university-healthcare nexus through both real estate and healthcare businesses. Drawing on open company data and expert interviews, the organizational structure of public and private actors in the university-healthcare nexus of the Peking University Healthcare City was unfold as a case study. Findings reveal that the university-healthcare nexus was established by Peking University and its subsidiary private companies. The nexus enables speculative urban development by aligning stakeholders' interests, branding healthcare businesses, and camouflaging profit-driven real estate development. This research thus brings an alternative perspective to understanding the relationship between public and private institutions and the critical role of universities in China's urbanization process. Since the research is based on an individual case study, future comparative studies could help test the scalability of the implications.