世界城市网络研究理论与方法及其对城市体系研究的启示

Review on world city studies and their implications in urban systems

世界城市研究是城市研究领域的重点领域之一,主流学者们的研究方法与思路在不同时期发生了一系列变化,研究的主要视角可划分为"有属性无关系"的世界城市研究、网络社会视角的世界城市研究、全球背景下的世界城市网络理论与方法研究三个阶段。随着信息通讯技术的发展、全球一体化进程的加速推进,生产性服务业已成为世界级城市发展高端化的重要标志,众多学科的交融为世界城市研究提供了新的技术支撑。目前对世界城市的研究已从多个城市的综合属性比较走向世界城市网络研究。基于生产性服务业的世界城市网络研究创新性地提出了连锁网络模型方法,为世界城市之间联系的重要推手(跨国企业)构建了由企业联系到城市联系的桥梁,成为基于企业视角的世界城市网络理论与方法的基石。世界城市网络理论与方法在城市体系研究中有着重要的运用价值,主要表现在:(1)由属性走向关系——从侧重城市属性信息到城市之间如何联系的转变;(2)由等级走向网络——从侧重城市的等级排序与竞争到城市体系的连接方向与互补的转变;(3)由封闭系统走向开放系统——从侧重考察范围内城市体系如何组织到更大范围内甚至全球的城市开放体系的转变;(4)在分析方法上从侧重统计比较到以点和线为一体的网络分析方法的转变。

The focus on world cities is always a hot issue in urban studies in global vision.However,the research methods for world cities in the mainstream field are gradually changing over time.To clarify its history,we divide studies on world cities into three periods,that is,stage of world cities with attributes but without relations,stage of world cities in network society,overly new stage of world city network in global environment.With rapid development in information technology and communications and deepened involvement in global integration,advanced producer services（APS） play an increasingly important role in economic and social relations between any two world cities.Meanwhile,new developments in other sources of retrieving data and introducing new approaches from other disciplines into world cities studies reveal that it is a new spring called stage of world city network for academic research in this field.The leading scholar,Peter J.Taylor,and his colleagues develop an interlocking network model when they obtain data from the survey in APS.We claim that new improvements in traditional urban system studies are obviously seen if theoretical and analytical methods in world city network are introduced.In detail,the improvements and implications are：（1） the transformation from attributes to relations,that is relation data instead of attribute data in retrieving basic sources;（2） new stage from hierarchy to network,that is linkages and cooperation instead of orders and hierarchies;（3） the research objectives from closed urban systems to open ones;（4） innovative research methods,that is network approaches instead of comparison of statistical data.