Port Cities

Reviewed in this essay: Han Meyer City and Port: Urban Planning as a Cultural Venture in London, Barcelona, New York, and Rotterdam. Changing Relations between Public Urban Space and Large Scale Infrastructure Richard Marshall (ed.) Waterfronts in Post‐Industrial Cities Raymond W. Gastil Beyond the Edge: New York's New Waterfront     

城市对抗

中国经济版图上存在三个大规模的经济圈,这就是以广州、深圳为中心的珠江三角洲,以上海为龙头的长江三角洲,以北京为核心的环渤海经济带.三大经济圈创造了整个国民生产总值的40%,并容纳了全国绝大部分新增劳动力的就业.……     

Hidden Cities

Books reviewed in this article: Borden, Iain, Joe Kerr and Jane Rendell (eds.) with Alicia Pivaro The unknown city: contesting architecture and social space Coutard, Olivier (ed.) The governance of large technical systems Easterling, Keller Organization space: landscapes, highways, and houses in America Melosi, Martin V. The sanitary city: urban infrastructure in America from colonial times to the present     

Port Cities

Chris Brenner Work in the New Economy: Flexible Labor Markets in Silicon Valley Mary Chayko Connecting: How We Form Social Bonds and Communities in the Internet Age David N. Pellow and Lisa Sun‐Hee Park The Silicon Valley of Dreams: Environmental Justice, Immigrant Workers, and the High‐Tech Global Economy     

没有郊区的城市

美国虽然幅员辽阔,但是150年来真正充满机遇的土地是城市。农场或国外的移民纷纷涌入城市,希冀寻求更好的学校、工作、医疗保健——简言之,寻求更好的生活。真正的城市是一个完整的大都市区,它包括城市地区与郊区。二次大战以来,美国城市化的表现是:低密度、郊区化。假若城市是有弹性的,人口倾向于增长。低密度城市通过增加未开发土地的人口来提高人口密度。     

Recentering Southeast Asian Cities

For nearly two decades now, scholars have been heralding the arrival of new urbanisms. One debate in rapidly urbanizing Southeast Asia concerns the convergence of Western and Asian urban processes, and the riposte that interaction between globalizing processes and the historical momentum of local and regional forces make for complex Asian urbanisms. In recent years, attention has been drawn to the impact of decentralization, with consequences for the reorganization of the developmental state and the growing importance of private capital and urban social movements in driving urban processes and politics. This symposium offers the fresh lens of ‘recentering’ to discuss the urbanisms emerging from decentralization and the triangulating state–capital–social movement politics of the new urbanisms. Drawing on recent discussions of Manuel Castells' (1983) The City and the Grassroots, we seek to expand the conception of urban activism not just by considering non‐Western cases in the newly democratizing states of Southeast Asia, but also by considering cities as co‐agents of activism. We see the recentering of Southeast Asian cities as referring to political actions that take the city not only as site and repository, but also reflexively as identity in itself to be fought with, for and over.     

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.     

展望2030未来之城——创建以人为本的城市(上)

人类从未停止过对未来生活的想象。而作为生活载体的城市,作为居住载体的建筑,也是被想象得最多的对象。跟人类有着进化一样,城市也一直在自我改进,它又是按怎样的规律变化着?2030年,我们的城市会是怎样的?本期《泛地产·大视界》带你展望未来之城的发展脉络,探讨如何创建以人为本的城市。     

论可持续城市

现如今,中国城市普遍出现了"城市病"现象,建设可持续城市是应对"城市病"蔓延、治理"城市病"的重要战略。在对国内外可持续城市相关研究成果进行评述基础上,提出可持续城市的全新内涵,从空间结构、交通结构、生态环境、经济支撑、文化传承五个维度论述构建可持续城市的主体框架具有重要意义。对此提出建设可持续城市的五大核心要件,即构建"分散紧凑型"多中心城市格局,建设以轨道交通为主导的公共交通体系,建设大尺度绿色生态空间,夯实支撑城市发展的实体经济基础,注重城市文脉延续,以留存城市特色与魅力。     

城市,紧凑而生态

人类面临人口、资源、环境的严重挑战,而中国尤为严峻。因此,建设紧凑型的城市是明智的选择。紧凑的城市首要是土地资源的节约和集约,这就必须树立起理性消费的观念。其中最重要的方面是住房的消费标准,并要形成对土地资源公平使用的机制,并营造和谐的社会。同时,要以公交交通引导开发(TOD)的模式,科学地建构城市的空间结构,使城市既紧凑又有节奏,既节能、节地又生动、活泼。并从对生态的全面理解,紧凑城市也应该能建成生态型的城市。     

Why Cities? A Response

Why do cities exist? Geographers Allen Scott and Michael Storper recently put the question before the field of urban studies and provided a clear and concise answer in terms of economies of agglomeration and the urban land nexus. I argue that two other basic elements must be added to this duo: the spatial concentration of economic surplus by ruling classes and states and the creation of a built environment or urban landscape. In addition, I take issue with Scott and Storper's neglect of the problem of scale in urban theory and their overly tidy sense of what constitutes a scientific approach to complex phenomena like cities.     

The Cultural Economy of Cities

An increasingly important fraction of contemporary economic activity is devoted to the production of cultural outputs, i.e. goods and services with high levels of aesthetic or semiotic content. This kind of economic activity is especially, and increasingly, associated with a number of large cities scattered over the globe. A conceptual account of this phenomenon is provided on the basis of an exploration of the character of place-specific forms of culture generation and the agglomerative tendencies of many kinds of cultural products industries. The empirical cases of Los Angeles and Paris are briefly discussed. The dynamics of production, distribution and location of major cultural products industries are also examined. The paper ends with a brief allusion to the modalities of spatial differentiation of culture in contemporary capitalism and to a prospective cultural politics.