我国城镇体系和城市化的探讨

AN APPROACH TO THE CITY SYSTEM AND URBANIZATION OF CHINA

城市化和城镇体系是城市地理研究的两个重要领域．结合中国实际分析社会主义市场经济体制下城市的发展，是研究城市化和城镇体系的新内容．本文首先介绍我国城镇体系的基本发展史，然后对与城市化有关的增长极理论、中心地学说、灰色区域概念、耗散结构理论等作概括性的介绍，从而探讨我国城市化的道路．作者认为：我国的城市化道路既要充分发挥特大城市的主力军作用，又要积极发挥小城镇的基础作用，而且要特别重视灰色区域的发展，使全国形成一个完整的、不同层次的、协调的、符合社会主义市场经济的城镇体系．

City system and urbanization are the two main problems for the study of urban geography. Contents of this paper consist of three parts: (1) a brief history on the development of city system in China; (2) an introduction of some theories which are closely related to urbunization; (3) an opinion by the author on the route of urbanization in China.In China, the first agricultural settlement appeared in Atlantic Epoch near 7 000-5 000 a BP, when the optimum climate was favourable to the development of agriculture. On Qin Dynasty, 221-207 B.C., whole China was united to an empire, the preliminary national settlement system grew with emperor's capital, a metropolis as the centre. Begining from the Nanking Treaty in 1842 AD, the modern cities grew on as the treaty ports. Since the establishment of New China in 1949, there is a rapid development on urbanization. In the transitional period from command economy to market economy after 1978, there is a fundamental change of urbanization with a sharp contract compared with the years before. A new city system is now onward in China.A brief inrtoduction and criticism of four principal theories which colsely related to urbanization are given.These four theories are the growth pole, central place, grey region and the dissipative structure.On the view point of comprehensive geography, China may be divided into three major regions, the distribution of cities and towns is uneven, all the metropolis are concentrated in Eastern Region and distributed along transport lines, two of which are N-S ward and the other two WE word.As for the route of urbanization, the author offers the following suggestions: (1) We should lay more stress on the metropolis which are the growth poles of large regions and with higher efficiency of labour, therefore metropolis are the main force of urbanization; (2) Our policy should rest on the basis of the constructure of a great number of small cities and towns which are the foundation of urbanization; (3) We should attach great importance to the urbanization of grey regions which are the contact point of metropolis, small towns and cities as well as the rural regions; (4) We should pay great attention to the modernization of extensire rural regions which are the hinterland of urbanization.