近期西方城市地理研究动向分析

Current Status and Development Direction of Urban Geographic Research in the West

在全球化、信息化和生态化等全球性趋势,知识经济迅猛发展和西方国家社会转型,西方国家城市发展新特征和当代西方哲学文化思潮等背景因素共同作用下,近期西方城市地理研究领域具有明显的社会理论倾向,城市地理研究的哲学基础和方法论呈现多元化态势,城市地理研究的定性分析方法和基于计算、模拟的定量分析方法均得到了长足发展。

The preliminary analysis on the recent achievement of the western urban geographic research reveals three main aspects of recent changes. Firstly, an obvious former social theory trend has been strengthened. Secondly, the philosophical underpinnings and methodologies of this discipline are becoming pluralistic. And thirdly, both the qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis based on calculation and modeling have made great progress. The emergence of all these changes in the Western urban geography due to the effects of several background facts, such as global trends including globalization, information technology and ecological conception, the rapid economic development based on knowledge and the social transition of the Western countries, and the new characteristics of the urban development and the current philosophical and cultural thoughts in the West.