Positioning urban rivers within urban ecology

Rivers are important components of many urban systems, and research into urban rivers is increasing internationally, both in scope and intensity. As an introduction to a special section on urban rivers, this short article briefly highlights some key trends in urban river research based on a survey of published articles from Web of Knowledge, before summarising the contributions made by the special section papers. In particular, there has been a general increase in work on urban rivers since the 1990s, with a more dramatic increase from 2001. Most published research has concentrated on water quality and its wider environmental implications; ecologically, many studies have focused on autecology, community ecology or river restoration/rehabilitation, with the main emphasis on macroinvertebrates or fish. Geographically, most studies have taken place in North America (mainly the US) and Asia (mainly China). In the large majority of cases research has been on relatively small rivers within urbanised catchments rather than large, heavily urbanised systems within major towns or cities. Given the wide range of topics and studies relating to urban river research, a detailed meta-analysis of the urban river ecology literature would be a useful endeavour. The six papers included in the special section of this issue provide a sample of some of key and emerging themes within recent urban river research, and originate from a session on the understanding and management of urban rivers held at the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) Annual Meeting in 2010, at Imperial College London.     

用城市设计理念塑造优美城市空间

一、前言 作为中国近代工业的发祥地.唐山拥有雄伟瑰丽的三山两河、丰富的物产资源、厚重的历史积淀以及辉煌的建设成就.是我国新兴的现代工业城市之一.     

浅谈城市文化与城市规划的关系

英国社会学家、诺贝尔奖获得者弗里德曼1986年按照“世界城市”的标准对全球一些主要城市进行了划分，他把纽约、芝加哥、洛杉矶、伦敦、巴黎、东京列为第一等级的核心城市。作为世界级城市．它们的竞争力不仅体现在经济上．更体现在社会、文化等领域的综合竞争力上。我国当代著名学者任继愈先生以其渊博的学识和前瞻性的眼光指出．随着改革开放后我国经济实力的快速增长．在不久的将来．一个中华民族文化复兴的时代必将到来。     

避免千篇一律的城市建设——兼论城市特色扩张

在世界城市发展史上，那些具有强烈地域气息、时代特征和民族风情的城市特性，是城市地域文化的源泉与结晶，扩射出人类文明的光华，并随着时代的发展愈来愈绽放出夺目的色彩。这些个性特征，不仅能提升城市的品位，产生强烈的社会效应，而且也往往能随之产生更高的知名度和较好的经济效益。因此，城市个性特征的塑造，越来越引起社会各个层面的重视。近几年，国内城市建设突飞猛进，每个城市都在精心打造自己的形象，使中国城市建设史上出现了一个喜人的发展局面。但是，一个对城市建设非常重要并且越来越突出的问题尚未引起人们的足够重视…     

城市文化对城市化和城市现代化的作用研究--以三个城市街区为个案

一、研究主题和研究方法 城市是人类生活的高级形态,自从出现了城市,人类社会的各个方面都呈现加速发展的态势.城市文化是城市社会的重要构成要素,是城市区别于乡村的重要方面,城市文化对城市化和城市现代化有着重要的推动作用.研究城市文化的这种推动作用,有助于正在加速城市化的中国更好地解决城市化和城市现代化中遇到的问题.     

城市经济体制改革与经营城市的几个理论问题

一、城市公共经济中“市场失灵”与按照市场方式经营管理的问题社会主义市场经济体制的建立，要求把城市公共经济纳入市场经济运行的轨道，按照市场方式经营管理。在这里首先遇到的问题，就是城市公共经济与“市场失灵”的问题，或者说在“市场失灵”的领域能否引入市场机制，能否按照市场方式和市场机制实施经营管理？这是城市经济体制改革和经营城市需要研究的一个重大的理论问题和实践问题。城市公共经济部门与城市公共产品，即城市基础设施和市政设施等，是城市重要的经济部门。由于这些部门具有经济外部性、非排他性和非竞争性，因此，…     

中国城市发展特征条件下的城市空间增长边界动因分析

城市规划是社会需求的产物,规划工作的本质是在特定社会条件下,应对当时、当地社会需求作出的一种制度安排.社会变迁是人类社会一切职业变迁的推力,也是规划职业以及作为规划职业指导的规划理论变迁的真正动力.     

城市规划诠释城市文化的基本原理及方法探讨

一、引言 不同学科基于不同视角对文化有着不同的定义,总体来看,基本上有两种界定文化的方式:一种是广义的文化,几乎囊括了人类的整个社会生活,可以用黑格尔的名言"文化是人类创造的第二自然"来概括;另一种是狭义的文化,指意识形态以及与之相适应的制度和组织结构.而城市规划学科里所指的城市文化,不是单指某一特定城市的文化教育设施、人的知识水平、受教育程度等可视可察的狭义文化,而是包括了举凡某特定城市所创造的一切物质文化、制度文化、行为文化和精神文化所形成的整体景象,具有整体大于部分之和的哲学内涵.它强调的是排他性、惟一性、标志性和内在价值,使城市充满朝气或者具有独特性.     

新城建设与城市空间结构优化研究——以广州为例

一、引言 新城运动源自19世纪末E·霍华德的田园城市．是第二次世界大战以后为解决大城市过度拥挤和无序蔓延．发达国家在大都市区内规划建设具有一定规模和密度的新城市的运动。从新城运动的起源可以看出．建设新城最初和最主要的目标是疏散城市中心区人口．减轻中心区人口和住房压力．为快速增长的城市人口提供合适的就业和住房．降低大都市区的通勤压力．是大城市发展到一定阶段的产物。     

改革开放＆城市规划

新中国的城市规划事业是从20世纪50年代兴起的。经历了1949年～1952年的国民经济恢复时期．1953年进入了第一个五年计划阶段．为配合第一个五年计划重点建设项目的顺利进行．1953年9月．中央要求“加强城市规划涉及工作”．到1957年国家建委先后批准了兰州、太原、西安、洛阳等15个城市的总体规划．并建立了相应的城市规划机构，从此．我国城市规划事业不断发展壮大起来。     

Examination of the relationship between urban form and urban eco-efficiency in china

The present study aims at exploring whether aspects of urban form are associated with urban eco-efficiency in China. Quantitative indicators relating to urban form (form, compactness ratio, elongation ratio and population density) and urban eco-efficiency (resource efficiency, environmental efficiency and overall eco-efficiency) were selected and quantified using remote sensing and data envelopment analysis methods. The urban form aspects of form and compactness ratios were positively correlated with urban eco-efficiency and resource efficiency. Conversely, the urban elongation ratio exhibited negative correlations with urban eco-efficiency and resource efficiency. Regarding environmental efficiency, no significant correlation is found with compactness though a negative correlation is found with population density. These results indicate that, within China, designing cities to be compact may be lead to increases in eco-efficiency and resource efficiency, but if the population density is too high the increased pollution costs will result in a decrease in environmental efficiency.     

Measuring urban sexual cultures

Gay neighborhoods across the United States are de-concentrating in today’s so-called “post-gay” era as sexual minorities assimilate into the mainstream and disperse across the city. This context creates a problem of measurement. If by “culture” we mean to say a particular way of life of a group or subgroup of people like sexual minorities, and if that way of life is blending with other aspects of the metropolis, then how can we detect distinct urban sexual cultures? In this article, I use 125 interviews with Chicago residents to propose a two-pronged strategy. First, gay neighborhoods continue to house anchor institutions, despite ongoing residential out-migrations. These are the primary engines of community building, and they locate the material culture of a group in a specific place. Commemorations serve as a second indicator for a culture, and they too put meanings into form. Although it is a fact of city life that all neighborhoods change, anchors and commemorations are analytic devices that scholars can use to observe urban sexual cultures. More generally, they provide a framework for how to measure the shifting geographic profile of a historically stigmatized group as it experiences positive change in public opinion.     

Community and urban movements

Empirically and theoretically, this paper considers the link between the urban community, as a social base, and the emergence of urban movements. It examines whether different urban communities lead to different urban movements, specifically whether cohesive communities lead to powerful movements. Using an Australian case study, the first part of the paper tests this relationship empirically. The findings given raise doubts about whether cohesiveness is a necessary pre-condition for widespread mobilisation, as well as questioning the theoretical validity of ‘urban community’and ‘community’as sociological concepts. There is an apparent need to discard these concepts when referring to contemporary Western societies and a concomitant need to develop concepts which more appropriately identify the social organisation of urban households and residential areas. The second part of the paper discusses these theoretical issues. It presents an argument on the way household and residential organisations change as the city changes and how they differ if urbanisation differs between regions and between nations. This argument provides a more appropriate framework for examining the nature of the relationship between social bases and urban movements and it contributes a more useful explanation for the case study.     

States and urban revolutions

Conclusion The structural perspective applied here highlights the features that led to the successful, anti-modern, and backward-looking religious revolution in Iran and the failure of a democratic socialist, worker-oriented movement in Poland. I argue that one can best understand the outcome of modern revolutions by focusing on the state and its relations to the society. By contrasting two countries and two revolutions, I have tried to show that variables such as the structure of the state, the patterns of state-church conflicts, the shifting church-class alliances, and the impact of geopolitics on these domestic factors are essential in explaining why one revolution succeeded while the other failed.The comparative argument can be summarized in the following way. In terms of state structure, the one-man rule in Iran strengthened the absolutist power of the Shah, but weakened the organizational capacity of the various state agencies to deal with political crises. The state bureaucracy and military disintegrated when the leadership lost its authority. In Poland, the existence of powerful and potentially autonomous organizations within the state apparatus made the counterrevolution possible. The party bureaucracy functioned despite chaos at the top and bottom of the hierarchy; and the Polish generals used the united military to seize power by declaring martial laws.The dialectical relation between state and society is equally important to understanding the different revolutionary outcomes. The Iranian state intensified its attacks on the Shiite clergy in the 1970s, emasculating the power of this non-state elite. When popular discontent broke out, the Shiite clerics became the revolutionary vanguard, mobilizing the support of all urban classes and leading the final assault on the monarchy. On the other hand, after a period of repression, the Polish regime made peace with the Roman Catholic church in order to appease the overwhelming Catholic population and to gain legitimacy. Because of the moderation of the state's religious policy, the church played a mediating rather than revolutionary role in the state-class conflict of 1980–81. While the clergy in Iran allied with the urban classes, the Polish church first supported the creation of Solidarity and then broke this alliance; the neutrality of the church thus reduced drastically the capacity of Solidarity to negotiate with the party-state. In these two cases, the participation of the clergy or the withdrawal of its support to urban classes means class capacity or incapacity to fight the regime.In addition, the international contexts had a great impact on the Iranian and Polish conflicts. The Polish state was constrained by its satellite position within the Soviet military empire, and the Polish Catholic church by the Vatican bureaucracy. The Soviet threat of invasion forced the party to choose military repression and convinced the religious elite to adopt a cautious attitude. In contrast, the Iranian state was relatively independent from the United States. The U.S. administration had no policy of military intervention in the Gulf region, and because it was devoid of any constraint, Iran's clergy followed the revolutionary call by a charismatic leader.     

关于城市规划本质的再思考

古希腊哲学家亚里士多德认为，“人们为了活着而聚集到城市．为了生活得更美好而居留于城市”．这是城市规划活动追求的目标．回答了人类为什么要进行城市规划活动这个问题。为了实现这一目标．人类从古至今一直在对城市居住环境进行着工程和艺术方面的改造，从哲学层面上看．这种为了实现特定目标而对城市环境进行预先调控的活动属于改造世界的范畴。然而．在进行城市规划活动之前．人们必然已经在大脑中形成了关于什么是“好的城市”、什么是“好的城市规划”的认识．这是进行城市规划活动的前提．否则城市规划活动将因缺乏评判标准而失去方向。从哲学层面上看．这种关于城市规划活动“价值判断”的认知属于认识世界的范畴。     

城市治理、城市经营与城市政府管理制度创新

一、“城市经营”是我国改革开放以来城市管理与治理的一种创新模式改革开放以来，我国的政府管理改革，无论是中央政府，还是省、市等地方政府的改革进程，不仅与经济体制的转轨相适应，或者由后者所推动，或者由后者启动，而且由于实行开放的方针，也必然接受国际政府改革思潮之影响，吸取先进经验，以利于发挥我们的后发优势。经济全球化趋势中资源在全世界范围内的优化配置为我国城市政府提出了新课题：一个开放型的城市政府应该如何管理城市？“九五”末期和“十五”初期，我国各个城市，特别是中心城市的政府加速引进国际城市管理的经…     

城市基础设施建设如何适应现代化城市的发展要求

一、现代化城市及现代化城市建设对基础设施发展的基本要求 中心城市现代化,是指中心城市建设的现代化,也是城市内部生产和生活服务的各种基础设施和一切活动的现代化.现代化的核心社会目标,是为了提高人类在物质生活和文化生活方面的品质.