Urbanizing Urban Political Ecology: A Critique of Methodological Cityism

Urban political ecology (UPE), an offshoot of political ecology that emerged in the late 1990s, has had two major impacts on critical urban studies: it has introduced critical political ecology to urban settings, and it has provided a framework for retheorizing the city as a product of metabolic processes of socionatural transformation. However, there was another goal in early UPE programmatic statements that has largely fallen by the wayside: to mobilize a Lefebvrian theoretical framework to trouble traditional distinctions between urban/rural and society/nature by exploring urbanization as a global process. Instead of following this potentially fruitful path, UPE has become bogged down in ‘methodological cityism’––an overwhelming analytical and empirical focus on the traditional city to the exclusion of other aspects of contemporary urbanization processes. Thus UPE's Lefebvrian promise, of a research program that could work across traditional disciplinary divisions and provide insights into a new era of planetary urbanization, has remained unfulfilled. In this article we trace UPE's history to show how it arrived at its present predicament, and offer some thoughts on a research agenda for a political ecology not of the city but of urbanization.     

Spaces of Extraction,Metropolitan Explosions: Planetary Urbanization and the Commodity Boom in Latin America

Through an exploration of the political economy of the current commodity boom in Latin America, and on the basis of recent appropriations of Henri Lefebvre's notion of planetary urbanization, this article proposes viewing spaces of resource extraction resulting from an escalating international demand for raw materials as particular morphological expressions of market‐driven processes of urbanization. Furthermore, the article draws on Lefebvre to argue that such burgeoning spaces of urbanization are the result of a contradictory tension between spatial homogenization—in the form of multiscalar governance frameworks and infrastructural programs—and territorial fragmentation—in the form of fixed capital allocations and state‐led spatial segregation. When considered jointly, these contradictory movements allow us to grasp fully the extent of the problematic explosion of spaces that, according to Lefebvre, characterizes capitalist urbanization. The article concludes by reflecting on the emancipatory promise that underlies the planetary extension of the urban form because, with the projection of material infrastructures required for resource extraction—especially information technologies—across the rural realm, local communities have been able to shed their isolated state and emerge as fully fledged political actors.     

Beyond the Urban–Suburban Divide: Urbanization and the Production of the Urban in Zurich North

Starting from current debates on ‘global suburbanism' and ‘postsuburbia', this article explores the changes that the former ‘urban periphery' of Zurich North has experienced in the last three decades. It mobilizes Henri Lefebvre's triadic concept of conceived, perceived and lived space in aid of an analysis of the profound urban transformations that can be observed. The construction of a new tramline serves as a guideline for an analysis of the implementation of new governance arrangements strengthening cross‐border cooperation between individual municipalities and new strategies of cooptation and expertise. This resulted in the production of new urban structures which led to a more densely woven and connected urban fabric primarily providing spaces for the headquarter economy and middle‐class housing. Concomitantly, great efforts have been made to create new public spaces, an urban image and even an urban atmosphere. These have proved at least partially successful, thus promoting a symbolic redefinition of the former urban periphery as a distinctively ‘urban' space. Conventional definitions and concepts no longer suffice to adequately understand such novel urban forms, leading to the conclusion that division into an ‘urban' and a ‘suburban' world is no longer a useful tool for urban analysis.     

快速城市化时期新兴中等城市建筑发展浅谈——以山东省日照市为例

文章以日照市为例,审视了三十年以来日照市城市建筑的发展历程,总结其建筑发展特征、影响其特征的各类因素,反思中等城市建筑发展中存在的为题,对城市建筑发展态势进行判断,提出中等城市建筑发展的引导策略,以期对中等城市建筑发展起到一定的指导意义。     

浅谈小城镇建设中的城市形象塑造

21世纪是城市的世纪,未来的20年将是中国城市化和城市高速发展的关键时期。然而,中国的国情和可持续发展战略,决定了中国的城市化必须走小城镇建设的发展道路。如何建设有特点的小城镇,作者借鉴当前不少城市的做法,对城市形象的塑造在小城镇中的应用作出几点探讨。     

城市流动人口与城市化最低经济门槛作用机制之探讨

通过对比中外城市化进程发现 :城市流动人口与城市化最低经济门槛作用机制对于进城的农村人口顺利城市化起着至关重要的作用。这一机制的中心规律是就业支柱产业工资与城市物价的均衡 ,其正常运转的充要条件是产业增加值结构与产业就业结构同步转换 ;就业支柱产业处于世界产业体系中上游 ;人口规模适中 ;有较健全的社会保障体系和免费义务教育。在此基础上 ,经过量化处理 ,建立了城市流动人口与城市化最低经济门槛作用机制的简单模型     

省区"城市化水平"的简易求算

提出了一种省区"城市化水平"计算方式,该方法简便易算,计算结果与各省区实际城市化水平基本相符,是城市及城市化问题研究的一种新的测算方法.     

天水旅游形象定位分析——突出文化性

一个个性、良好、鲜明的旅游地形象可以形成长期的垄断地位,其垄断力来源于产品与服务的差异化。本文通过分析天水自然地理、人文历史等旅游资源条件,从文化特质、旅游功能、市场定位入手,为天水旅游形象的定位提出建议。     

宏观调控与个体创意——作为城市意象的户外广告不可缺少的两面

户外广告是城市意象的重要构成部分。文章对部分国内外的户外广告的个体创意进行了举例,指出单一的创意户外广告能活泼特定的城市场景。在提高到整体城市景观的层次上,户外广告组成的街道景观甚至构成了人对整个城市的印象。为了避免城市景观受到户外广告无序蔓延的破坏,城市管理者必须通过宏观调控的手段进行一定的控制。经过国内外一些城市规划方向的广告管理案例进行列举与梳理,文章认为对户外广告的宏观调控现今是不可缺少的。但相比国外,我国在户外广告管理上,广告行业协会与居民的参与还并不广泛,在管理的具体实现手段上,还未尽完善,这些是值得进一步研究。总的来说,宏观调控与个体创意共同促使户外广告成就具有魅力的城市意象。     

市管县体制的弊端与新型城市化的发展对策

按照工业化与城市化的辨证关系,我国应走新型城市化道路。但是,我国目前实行的的市管县体制制约着新型城市化的发展;因此,应通过改革市管县体制来保障我国新型城市化的推进。     

Emerging Cultural Capital in the City: Profiling London and Brussels

This essay examines how the contemporary city is being redefined as a fundamental crucible in which new and emerging modes of cultural capital are being forged. Drawing inspiration from the links Bourdieu draws between physical and social space, we use comprehensive quantitative surveys from Belgium and the UK to explore the accelerating interplay between large urban centres and the generation of ‘cosmopolitan cultural capital’. We show a close association between urban sites and the location of residents with new kinds of emerging cultural capital. This appreciation allows us to understand the increasing prominence of large metropolitan centres, which stand in growing tension with their suburban and rural hinterlands. This process is simultaneously cultural, economic, social and political and marks a remaking of the nature of cultural hierarchy and cultural capital itself, away from the older model of the Kantian aesthetic, as elaborated by Bourdieu in Distinction, which venerates a ‘highbrow’ aesthetic removed from everyday life, towards ‘emerging’ forms of cultural capital that valorize activity, engagement and intense forms of contemporary cultural activity.     

可持续城市化:发展视野中的批判

可持续城市化发展在共同的发展理念遮蔽下存在着重大的内在差异,从发展哲学的整体性研究视野出发,我们通过对可持续城市化发展理念内在分歧的反思揭示出可持续城市化发展理念分歧的理论基础;进一步指出,当今世界城市可持续发展浪潮的实质是资本城市化;在中国实施城市的科学发展必须走自己的道路,要以城市的新现代性引领中国特色的可持续城市化发展道路.     

和谐城市化及其测度理论体系

实施积极的城市化战略,有利于改善生态环境,节约土地资源,提高人口素质,控制人口增长,推动整个社会走向和谐。通过对和谐与和谐社会的理解,充分挖掘和谐城市化的深刻内涵及其发展特征,并通过发展度、协调度、持续度以及三者的有机统一体——和谐度来衡量城市化的和谐发展能力。     

秦巴山区域新型城镇化建设路径探讨——以陕西安康市为例

新型城镇化是我国建设现代化国家的必经之路,也是全面建成小康社会,实现中国梦的重要内容。人的城镇化是新型城镇化建设的核心要义,当前,我国经济社会发展进入了新常态,政府在新型城镇化建设进程中,主要做好基本公共服务均等化、保障社会公平正义和民生民权,为推进新型城镇化强基础、增动力。本文以地处秦巴山核心区域的陕西安康市为例,分析了安康秦巴山区域新型城镇化建设的现状及存在问题,进而分析政府主导的新型城镇化发展模式中地方政府职能转变,探索提出基于安康秦巴山区域就近城镇化建设的可行路径。     

地区营销理论视角中的澳门未来形象

运用地区营销理论和定性研究方法,构建了澳门形象分析的基本框架,探讨了澳门未来形象的定位,认为娱乐旅游和文化旅游可作为澳门未来形象的核心概念.     

Urban Fortunes and Skeleton Cityscapes: Real Estate and Late Urbanization in Kigali and Addis Ababa

In many parts of Africa, societies that remain primarily rural are experiencing accelerated urban growth and highly visible booms in property development. In the absence of significant industrialization, investment is pouring directly into what Lefebvre and Harvey characterized as the ‘secondary circuit’ of capital. Debates about the drivers of investment in real estate are longstanding in relation to the global North, but have given little consideration to low‐income and late‐urbanizing countries in Africa. Yet such contexts offer important opportunities to reflect on existing theory. Focusing on Kigali and Addis Ababa (both transformed virtually beyond recognition over the past two decades), this article explores the drivers and consequences of investment in urban real estate in countries striving to structurally transform their economies. It argues that a range of formal and informal incentives and constraints have led to high‐end real estate being viewed as the ‘safest bet’ for those with resources to invest, even where demand is limited and governments are promoting other kinds of investment. While some people are reaping urban fortunes in largely untaxed rents, much of the construction is purely speculative, creating landscapes of unused and underused high‐end properties in contexts where investment is desperately needed elsewhere.     

加强基础设施建设,提升中心城区的辐射带动能力

在新型城镇化进程中,加强中心城区的基础设施建设、提升中心城区的承载能力、发挥中心城区的辐射带动作用十分重要。本文在分析了黄河三角洲地区中心城市基础设施建设存在不足的基础上,提出了加强中心城区基础设施建设的看法与建议,旨在为全面提升该区域的城镇化水平提供参考。     

AGAINST THE COLONIZATION OF URBAN DEVELOPMENT: The Top-dong Right to the City Movement in Jeju,South Korea

The Top-dong Movement was an extensive residents’ resistance mobilization against the Top-dong Public Water Reclamation project in the late 1980s in Jeju, South Korea. Starting as a local female divers’ struggle for subsistence, the Top-dong Movement grew into a collective action to reveal the illegalities of the project, demand that profits should be fairly shared and assert self-determination. State-led development of Jeju in the post-Korean war period functioned to render the island an extractive periphery during South Korea's capitalist modernization. Within that context, the Top-dong reclamation project exemplifies how urban development projects create colonial conditions in local communities by dispossessing them of land and the means of subsistence, commodifying public resources and extracting profits. Jeju islanders reacted by claiming specific rights: female divers’ collective rights to public water and the means of livelihood against dispossession; local residents’ rights to control developmental profits against extraction; and islanders’ rights to participate in decision-making processes against exclusion. Bridging Lefebvre's two concepts—colonization and the right to the city, this article argues that the historically situated, place-based right to the city movement revealed the colonization involved in urban development and performed practices of decolonization.     

城市形象危机防范与新闻报道——以深圳市为例

基于对大众媒体在城市形象传播当中所发挥的作用的理解,调研了包括报纸、网站等在内的国内外八家主流媒体在2008年所涉及的深圳城市形象的报道,从中了解到深圳城市形象传播中出现的一些问题。为抵御潜在的深圳城市形象危机,针对存在的问题提出了相应的建议。     

城市意象要素的本土化文化认知

研究了林奇的城市要素,从本土化文化认知的角度分析林奇城市意象要素的文化意义,以期为城市形象与城市整体设计提供新的认知;认为城市形象是城市发展的文化动力因,是城市核心竞争力的要素之一,要创造良好的城市形象,必须创造性地开发城市的意象要素.