On the morning of March 29, 2024, the Department of Social Sciences and the Institute of Cross-Cultural Studies at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences invited Dr. Hongmou Zhang, assistant professor at the School of Government, Peking University, to deliver a lecture on the theme of "Smart Cities and Sociological Imagination". The lecture was moderated by Dr. Shuang Wu, assistant professor in Globalization and Development Program, and was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China Youth Project [42301281] and the Ministry of Education Humanities and Social Sciences Research Found Youth Project [23YJC840024]. 

Dr. Zhang approached the topic from three dimensions: the sociality of ridesharing, the management of autonomous vehicles, and the universal law of human mobility. He delved into these topics by using three cross-cultural cases from the Manhattan area in the United States, the Tampine community in Singapore, and various urban clusters in China. Drawing on interdisciplinary knowledge from urban studies, geography, computer science, and applied mathematics, he explored how the sociological imagination can assist and promote smart cities, particularly in the planning and construction of smart transportation systems. Dr. Zhang argued that: (1) Sociological imagination transforms ridesharing choices into a math problem of preference matching, improving the comfortableness of urban shared transportation through linear optimal topology; (2) Sociological imagination enhances the traffic priority of urban pedestrians and optimizes the planning of unmanned driving cities through choice model operations; (3) Sociological imagination better explores human mobility patterns, making smart cities a place of new human relations and new socio-physical relations.

The lecture sparked lively discussions and active questioning from the audience. Mr. Gao, a student majoring in statistics, and Mr. Gong, a student majoring in finance, asked Dr. Zhang questions about the technical parameters of computer simulation for driverless city, as well as data analysis methods in the field of smart transportation. Dr. Zhang patiently guided and answered the students' questions. Finally, Dr. Zhang encouraged everyone to analyze societal development issues through interdisciplinary and cross-cultural perspectives in order to propose innovative thinking and solutions.