Received date: 2011-04-01
Request revised date: 2011-12-12
Online published: 2012-03-25
Copyright
After Gottmann introduced the concept of Megalopolis in 1957, the urban agglomeration, as a special form of the urban system, has been the core content of urban geography. Since the reform and opening up, China's urban spatial organization has presented a new trend. Urban agglomerations are emerging as engines of Chinese economy. The State Council of China has also issued a series of important plans to take the urban agglomerations as national and regional growth poles and main form of urbanization. This article reviews the most important domestic and foreign literature on important concepts including 'Megalopolis', 'Desakota Region', 'Global City-Region', 'Polycentric Mega City-Region', 'Metropolitan Interlocking Region' and 'Urban Agglomeration'. Gottmann argued that megalopolis was the hub and incubator of national development. He pointed out there were six megalopolises around the world. Mcgee, based on the actual development of Asia, put forward different spatial pattern namely dasakota. Scott et al. paid attention to the effect of globalization and localization on city and regional development. They argued that global city-regions were the most important actors of the world. Hall et al. integrated research method of economic geography and urban geography to study the polycentric mega city-region. This study was innovative and enlightening. Zhou Yixing argued that the research on metropolitan interlocking region must be based on definition of metropolitan area. Yao Shimou introduced the concept of urban agglomeration systematicly. It is also the most popular spatial concept in China. Chinese scholars have done a lot of work on urban agglomerations, while the concept of urban agglomeration is not clearly defined. Because of confusion on definition, spatial scale of urban agglomeration is uncertain. So it is hard to establish the research paradigm of urban agglomeration in China. Regional and national planning on urban agglomeration is also impacted by this fuzzy concept. It is also necessary for State Council to launch work on definite metropolitan area and urban agglomeration in order to guideline regional and national economic development more effectively. We should follow scientific tradition of the project on Chinese Metropolitan Interlocking Regions, and use the latest sixth census data to clearly define urban agglomeration based on metropolitan area so as to strengthen urban agglomeration research in China. It is also reqired to integrate research method of economic geography and urban geography and carry out an interdisciplinary research. It is also important to study aggregation and diffusion laws of urban agglomeration from different spatial scale, establishing the research paradigm.
LI Xian-de , NING Yue-min . Review and Prospect on Urban Agglomeration[J]. SCIENTIA GEOGRAPHICA SINICA, 2012 , 32(3) : 282 -288 . DOI: 10.13249/j.cnki.sgs.2012.03.282
The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
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