西方多中心城市区域研究进展

PROGRESS OF STUDIES ON POLYCENTRIC URBAN REGION IN WESTERN COUNTRIES

随着经济全球化的发展,城市功能及其边界不断扩张,城市区域日益取代城市成为参与国际竞争的基本单元。多中心城市区域是城市区域发展的新形态,它作为一种空间组织形式或者工具在欧盟的空间规划中得到了应用。目前,关于多中心城市区域的研究已经成为西方城市和区域空间研究的一大热点。经济学、人文地理学、城市规划学等学科都对多中心城市区域进行了研究,研究重点集中在多中心城市区域内涵和定义、多中心城市区域测度方法、多中心城市区域演进,以及多中心城市区域的功能等方面。

With the development of globalization, both the function and boundary of city have been expanding continually. City has been given a lot of new meanings. In the recent years, ＂space＂ has been stressed in re- gional science, and studies on ＂spatial structure＂ have been more and more important. As new technology de- veloped, ＂space of flow＂ and ＂network＂ come into being, which brings new characteristics to urban region de- velopment. Polycentric Urban Region （PUR） as a new configuration of urban region development is an im- portant part of this issue. In Western, studies on PUR have been hot topics among urban and regional spatial researchers, and it also attracts many researchers＇ interests in China gradually. PUR is not only a topic dis- cussed by Economic Geographers, but also scholars in other domains. Consequently, Scholars from different domains have carried on researches about this subject from different perspectives. For example, economists focused on the economic model of regional economic development suited to PUR, while urban planners paid more attention on the micro formation mechanism of PUR. However, there are still different views on many basic questions, such as the functions of PUR. It is these differences that accelerated the researches on this subject. Although the theory of PUR is immature, it has been implemented in the spatial planning of EU. From European Spatial Development Perspective （ESDP） to European Spatial Planning Observation Network （ESPON）, a lot of files have been announced by EU, andresearches on PUR are still carrying on. For the poli- cy makers, PUR is a good instrument, since it can not only improve the competition capacity of region, but al- so can promote balanced development in a region or a country. China, as the biggest developing country, un- balance development of regions is a huge obstacle for sustainable development of the country. PUR may pro- vide a new direction to solve this problem. Progress on PUR can be found both in theory and in practice. Nowadays, the attention is mainly paid to four aspects, which are the connotation and definition of PUR, the measure method of PUR, the evolution of PUR and the functions of PUR. This article mainly summarized the topics in question and introduced some progress on this object.