Sequential city growth: Empirical evidence

Using two comprehensive datasets on populations of cities and metropolitan areas for a large set of countries, I present three new empirical facts about the evolution of city growth. First, the distribution of cities’ growth rates is skewed to the right in most countries and decades. Second, within a country, the average rank of each decade’s fastest-growing cities tends to rise over time. Finally, this rank increases faster in periods of rapid growth in urban population. These facts can be interpreted as evidence in favor of the hypothesis that historically, urban agglomerations have followed a sequential growth pattern: Within a country, the initially largest city is the first to grow rapidly for some years. At some point, the growth rate of this city slows down and the second-largest city then becomes the fastest-growing one. Eventually, the third-largest city starts growing fast as the two largest cities slow down, and so on.     

城市的脆弱性及其规避措施

在城市安全问题上引入"脆弱性"这一概念,初步构建城市脆弱性的研究框架:概念界定、影响因素和评价方法。城市规模、密度和形态,经济社会发展和基础设施水平以及应急管理水平,是影响城市脆弱性的结构性因素。突发事件是城市脆弱性产生的主要胁迫因素。城市规划和建设应以安全为基点,将城市脆弱性分析作为新依据,建立城市规模、密度和形态三位一体的关系,做好城市安全基础设施规划和建设,增强城市突发事件的综合应对能力。     

南京城市文化战略及其空间效应

基于城市文化战略的转化趋势,对南京市城市文化战略及其空间效应进行了深入分析.指出,南京的城市文化战略和全球趋势一致,由注重社会文化发展和历史文化保护,转向促进城市经济发展与提升城市竞争力.具体表现为以文化设施建设,文教机构扩展,文化产业发展,特色文化空间营造与大型文化事件为主要内容的城市文化经济策略和城市行销策略.文化战略的实施加剧了城市空间重构,不仅加快城市空间外向拓展,而且通过功能空间置换、特色空间营造和文化产业空间集聚促使城市内部空间结构转化.     

Thermal Eco‐cities: Green Building and Urban Thermal Metabolism

Eco‐city projects are becoming increasingly prevalent throughout the globe and are often marketed as ‘new’ urban environments focused on achieving sustainable urban living while promoting environmental–economic transitions towards a low‐carbon technological and industrial base. The article argues for the need to consider the thermal aspects of urban metabolism, while at the same time focusing on the link between individual buildings and eco‐city master plans and wider economic development strategies at a state level. In so doing, the article encourages critical analysis of eco‐city design and planning, while keeping a focus on the role of specific building structures within eco‐cities as examples of the intermeshing of what can be termed a ‘political ecology of scale’ which stretches from specific buildings' climatic characteristics, to the metabolic master plan for eco‐cities, to provincial, regional and state‐level plans for the integration of eco‐cities within wider economic and political development trajectories. The article focuses on Masdar, in Abu Dhabi, an eco‐city under construction at the time of writing.     

基于生态视野的和谐规划思考

为城市规划在构建社会主义和谐社会的地位和作用,从分析和谐社会与城市规划的关系入手,提出了和谐规划的思想,强调以人为本、可持续发展。简要并总结了西方生态主义城市规划的理论与实践,认为新城市主义、精明增长对和谐规划具有一定的借鉴意义。建设和谐城市,就要坚持和谐规划的思想,把人文关怀的精神和可持续发展的理念切实贯彻落实到城市规划实践之中。在制定城市规划过程中,要更加注重城乡统筹发展,更加注重区域协调发展,更加注重经济社会协调发展,更加注重人与自然和谐发展,更加注重规划的国际视野和战略眼光。和谐规划管理,必须充分体现规划在城乡发展、产业协调、资源分配等领域的法定指导地位,综合平衡和统筹调控城市空间布局和资源分配,以规划管理促和谐。和谐规划管理,必须坚持以人为本,必须保障社会公平正义,必须提高规划管理公共服务意识,必须体现真正有效的公众参与。要将和谐规划思想自觉贯穿于规划管理的全过程。     

宜居城市视角下中小城市总体规划实施评价体系构建——以重庆市万州区为例

中小城市是推进我国城市化进程,建设宜居城市的中坚力量,城市总体规划则起着指导城市建设的重要作用,城市总体规划实施评价体系构建是现代城市建设与规划体系中的重要环节。文章以建设宜居城市作为发展目标,通过定量与定性结合的方式,从城市空间布局、城市环境、城市交通、城市经济发展和社会文明建设等方面检测、反馈绩效,构建中小城市总体规划实施评价体系,并以重庆市万州区2008年度城市总体规划实施评价为例,探讨该评价体系的实践运用。     

Cities in Contemporary Capitalism

This article outlines essential concepts of the political economy approach of urban research and offers critical modifications and clarifications to some of its contentions concerning the functioning of cities as ‘strategic places’ of capital accumulation. The interrelations between contemporary capitalism and urban economic development are discussed at the scale of a transnationally extended urban system. Based on the general context of the global economic downturn, I focus on the role of cities in distinct circuits of capital, the switching of capital flows within the urban system and the different functional roles of cities within the world city network that interconnects cities both in the global North and South. I call into question the established focus of urban economic research on the role of cities as financial and service centres, arguing that cities might redirect their economic development trajectories towards ‘real economy’ activities, in contrast to relying on the disastrous development model of finance‐dominated capitalism.     

THE CITIES WE CALL HOME: Indigeneity,Race and Settler-Colonial Urbanisms

The connection between Indigeneity and urban spaces remains on the margins of urban studies and Indigenous studies, even as the majority of Indigenous people in the United States live in cities. Scholars have recently begun to think about the connection between settler colonialism and racial capitalism and the urban. In this essay I examine how the dispossession of Indigenous peoples has shaped modern urban development and, importantly, how Indigenous peoples and culture have contributed to reclaiming and challenging urban dispossession through their engagement with Black people and culture. In this essay I use a few examples of Indigenous expressive culture in Detroit, Michigan, during the Emergency Management Era and urban Indigenous youth activism, to urge for us to move beyond simply demonstrating that Indigenous peoples live in urban contexts. Instead, I call for an urban Indigenous studies that explores the connections between dispossession and the possibilities of a radical Indigenous resurgence in cities, and describe how this can be done through solidarity with African Americans in a predominantly Black city.     

A new interpretation on the optimal density regulations: Closed and open city

Optimality of urban density regulations differs between a closed city and an open city. We demonstrate, by examining optimal floor area ratio (FAR) regulation, how to control building size to mitigate traffic congestion externality in a monocentric city. Results show that a closed city requires not only downward adjustment to the market density at boundary locations using maximum FAR regulation but also upward adjustment at central locations using minimum FAR regulation. On the other hand, an open city requires only the former. The common practice of imposing only maximum FAR regulation is thus insufficient for closed cities although it is effective for open cities.     

Reeling in Newcomers: Urban Competition around Migrant Reception in Brussels

The management of ethnic diversity and its various forms of institutional articulation and implementation are increasingly taking place at the urban level. At the same time, urban scholars consider cities to be battlegrounds where competing groups contest the meaning and articulation of citizenship. In this article, I build on these insights to argue that competition over newcomer reception between different, linguistically divided political coalitions in the city of Brussels are mainly battles over establishing their own definition of citizenship and asserting their political influence. Building on an eighteen-month ethnographic study in three reception offices (two Dutch-speaking and one francophone) in Brussels, I analyse the different strategies these offices mobilize to recruit and retain newcomers. I argue that recruitment is a deliberate tool used to influence the political-cultural demographics of the city and destabilize the linguistic power balance in Brussels. In this way, recruitment becomes a means to attract newcomers to the reception offices in the hope that they will develop a deep connection and loyalty to, and eventually identify politically with, the agency's respective political community. Theoretically, this article develops a perspective that regards the city as a field that becomes constituted in and through the contest between different urban institutions to ‘reel in’ newcomers. In this space, these institutions take up positions for and against each other and assemble strategies to influence the urban populations.     

都市语境下的建筑设计策略与手法

在人类的发展历程中,城市一直是社会进步、经济发展的集中体现。随着社会的高速发展、人类物质生活的极大丰富,人们在城市中的活动愈发多样,建筑的功能和类型也越来越复杂。而这些身处城市环境中的建筑,无论在设计还是使用的过程中必然会受到来自城市的影响。本文试图论述在面对都市现状、应对都市问题时,建筑设计的策略与方法有了哪些转变,并结合案例对这些转变进行进一步阐释。     

Experiences of Urban Militarism: Spatial Stigma,Ruins and Everyday Life

A key question in urban sociology is how people interpret the urban environment. At a time when cities are increasingly militarized, this question is particularly important for understanding how militarism impacts urban life. However, urban sociologists have not addressed how people experience militarized environments. This article turns to this question by considering the case of Lydda‐Lod, an Israeli city that has been demographically and physically transformed by war, displacement and securitization. Drawing on Wacquant's sociology of spatial stigma and adding insights from works on emotions in (post‐)conflict cities, I examine how poor Palestinians think and feel about the surveilled districts where they live within the city's broader landscape of ruins. I show how the Israeli military, security and policing agencies have collectively produced spatial stigmatization of these districts. I discuss how Palestinians respond to this spatial stigma by attaching a sense of worthlessness to their districts. However, this reproduction of spatial stigma is punctuated by expressions of care for the built environment and by a desire to revalorize collective Palestinian life in the city. I conclude by discussing how a perspective on militarized cities focused on everyday responses to militarism and attentive to marginalities enriches urban sociology and urban studies more generally.     

宜居城市建设视角下的城市房屋拆迁改造研究——以大连市为例

近些年来,中国经济持续高速发展,城市化进程不断加快,一些城市纷纷提出构建宜居城市的理念。在城市发展和城市宜居的建设过程中,必然要涉及城市房屋拆迁改造的问题。文章通过2007年和2010年调查经历过城市房屋拆迁改造的居民,了解他们对城市房屋拆迁改造的评价,以及对宜居城市建设和城市房屋拆迁改造的认识。结论为:不同的时期、不同社会属性的居民对城市房屋拆迁改造的评价,以及对城市房屋拆迁与宜居城市建设的认识存在差异。问题的关键在于较高的房价使得居民害怕拆迁,进行二次置业。因此,政府应该继续对商品房价格进行调控,同时,增加经济适用房以及廉租住房的建设。     

The Cosmopolitan Grassroots City as Megaphone: Reconstructing Public Spaces through Urban Activism in Jakarta

Discussions on social movements in Asian cities are inseparable from the abundance of public rallies in the region. In this article, I look at the case of Thamrin‐Sudirman, the main thoroughfare in Jakarta, Indonesia, to uncover how physical urban spaces constituting part of the city as living systems broaden the reach of social movements' agendas. The study involved continuous observation at rallies, interviews with social movement leaders and participants, and a look at simultaneous public rallies in various cities. This article analyzes the sites of public rallies as ‘megaphones’, based on the patterns of issues featured in the rallies, the groups participating, and the nodes and paths that they constructed. Two key dimensions of the megaphone are: (1) the symbolic and historical significance of the sites of rallies; (2) the relationship between the space and the media. Particular sites in cities become places where information is gathered, distributed and transferred through the media, facilitating a network among cities. This article concludes that cities are agents of political actions that amplify ideas and spread them across the globe. The urban centers' megaphonic function results from the synergy between the public space in the built environment and the public sphere, and is reflective of the recentering of the city.     

BEYOND THE TRIAGING OF NEGLECTED THINGS: Connecting Place and Participation Across an Urban System

What is the relationship between top-down governance reform and place-based participatory and deliberative spaces? In this article I argue that in Toronto, an urban system of public participation and deliberation is intimately interwoven into partisan scalar restructuring processes, as well as enduring tensions over the ways and means by which the public can have authoritative input on solving local issues. Regardless of top-down political manoeuvring, the public mobilizes in various spaces across the city, but the urban system remains disconnected and geared towards triaging. This means that the public must work autonomously across the city and within the crevices of city processes, prioritizing how to make gains on issues that they feel are important. I discuss how to move beyond this by building on deliberative systems theory and findings from interviews with local city staff and residents, and through an analysis of public deputations at the official Special Committee on Governance. Ultimately, there is a need for spatially integrated opportunities for more people to come together and assemble in different ways. Some of these will align with autonomous activities, some are liminal and woven within institutional partners, and others are more about geographical bridge building.     

适应型城市:将适应气候变化与气候风险管理纳入城市规划

气候变化对城市规划提出新的要求,即:通过人口、土地等资源的时空配置,最大限度地减小城市面临的潜在气候风险。本文从"城市发展如何考虑气候变化与风险管理需求"这一核心问题出发,探讨了气候风险、气候风险管理及适应型城市的概念和内容,指出在中国城市化提升阶段,城市发展迫切需要加强气候风险管理的意识和能力。基于国外城市应对气候变化风险的实践与经验,提出将适应与气候风险管理纳入城市规划,提出构建适应型城市的几个要点。     

从绿色建筑到低碳生态城

本文从回顾我国的建筑节能与绿色建筑发展历程入手,进而提出了正确的发展观和城市应对之道,即走中国特色的低碳城市发展模式必须从两个层次——绿色建筑和低碳生态城建设——同时入手。文章将低碳生态城分为四种主要类型,总结了我国在天津中新生态城、唐山曹妃甸等地进行的生态城建设初步探索与实践,在此基础上提出了我国低碳生态城发展的总体思路和规划建设的具体要求,以及最具潜力的低碳生态城的关键技术。     

Decentralizing Indonesian City Spaces as New ‘Centers’

Since the introduction of regional autonomy legislation in 1999, Indonesia has embarked on the world's biggest experiment with democratic decentralization. The intertwined processes of democratization and decentralization have dismantled Indonesia's centralized authoritarian system and reordered its governmental structures. These conjoined processes have set in motion conditions for the transformation of a number of Indonesia's secondary cities into regional ‘centers’ through the influx of new peoples, funding and ways of interacting within localized contexts and with the outside world. In this article I consider Indonesia's decentralization processes through the lens of the city, focusing on three key areas in the rising profile and development of urban centers. First, I look at the framing of Indonesian cities within contemporary urban discourses to highlight the array of urban spaces that coexist in the era of decentralization. Second, I describe how Indonesia's decentralization laws have structurally privileged cities by bypassing the provincial level and devolving most state powers directly to sub‐provincial administrations. Third, I explore how Indonesian cities compete and cooperate over limited state resources under the decentralized system and why some cities have been able to reinvent themselves as new centers in planning, practice and innovation, and why others continue to lag behind.     

City Children and Genderfied Neighbourhoods: The New Generation as Urban Regeneration Strategy

Former industrial cities in the West are employing gentrification as urban policy. In these policies, women and families currently play an important role as gentrification pioneers. In my analysis of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, I propose the term genderfication to understand the gender dimensions of this process. Genderfication refers to the production of space for different gender relations. I analyse Rotterdam's urban planning program for becoming a ‘child‐friendly city’, which entails replacing existing urban dwellings with new, larger and more expensive ‘family‐friendly homes’ as a strategy for urban re‐generation. Urban re‐generation supplements regeneration in the form of material and economic restructuring, and refers to the replacement of part of the current population by a new and better suited generation. The ‘child‐friendly city program’ is considered in tandem with punitive ‘youth policies’.     

通往社会城市之路——霍华德的构想与中国城市的未来

城市化的动态过程是伴随着大规模人口由农村向城市迁移,当迁移数量达到或已经远远超过城市的容纳数量的时候,城市将怎么继续下去?埃比尼泽·霍华德(Ebenezer Howard,1850—1928)提出通过建设田园城市以及开展一系列的社会改革,最终构建一个城市—乡村一体化发展的田园城市群——社会城市,从而达到重新分布城市拥挤人口的目的。现阶段,中国城市化正处于快速推进时期,农村流动人口的大规模城市聚集已经明显造成了城市拥挤、住房困难、环境恶化等一系列的城市病。中国城市将怎么继续下去,中国城市的未来在哪里?本文分为三个部分(一)城市化的动态过程与静态结果;(二)霍华德构想的社会城市——重读《明日的田园城市》;(三)中国城市的未来。