特大城市的环境治理:技术张力与边界刚性

Environmental Governance in Mega-cities:Technological Breakthroughs and the Rigidity of Environmental Constraints

城市规模的扩张受到空间、土地、水资源、能源等环境要素的刚性制约,技术的突破能不断舒缓环境容量对城市规模的约束。因此,特大城市的环境治理是技术张力和边界约束的均衡。技术张力的内在制约表明,虽然科学理性的技术选择有助于舒解特大城市的环境压力、提升环境容量,但由于自然、经济和社会刚性的约束,单纯的工程技术途径难以无限破解边界约束等原因,特大城市环境的有效治理,需要通过制度手段来明确城市发展的功能定位、均衡配置公共资源,以消除特大城市无序扩张的源泉,实现我与自然的和谐。

Expansion of urban scale is often constrained by environmental capacities,such as spatial,land,water,and energy resources.However,the rigidity of such environmental limits is relaxed by technological breakthroughs and the scales of cities grow continuously.As a result,the environmental sustainability of a functioning mega-city is managed through relaxing the rigidity of environmental constraints by technological breakthroughs.On the other hand,technological breakthroughs are not unlimited given the urgency of environmental challenges.This suggests that purely technological approaches cannot be an ultimate solution to environmental sustainability.The author concludes that institutional approaches can provide essential and effective solutions to environmental sustainability in mega-cities through defining the functions of a mega-city through legislation and balanced distribution of public resources such as,in particular,quality educational and medical care facilities.For human and nature in harmony in mega-cities,the level of concentration of public resources must be kept within environmental carrying capacity.