Territorial cohesion trends in Inner Scandinavia: The role of cross-border cooperation – INTERREG-A 1994–2010

The article examines whether the goal of territorial cohesion can be achieved in the area designated ‘Inner Scandinavia’ through the interventions of the European Union's cross-border cooperation programme, INTERREG-A. The programme supports a polycentric development of the Inner Scandinavian border region, which is one of three Swedish-Norwegian INTERREG-A sub-programmes. Since 1994 substantial progress has been made in the Swedish-Norwegian INTERREG-A programme, which recently ended its third generation (2007–2013), with the overarching goals of strengthening the attractiveness and competitiveness of the border region. Progress can be witnessed in the improved selectivity of the projects, which have become fewer, with more funding and more focus on innovation, and of the involved partners, with increasing participation by universities and research centres. However, despite the maturity of the Nordic cross-border programme, many challenges lie ahead. In general, the Swedish-Norwegian border region continues to lag behind in the Scandinavian socio-economic context, in which the main urban agglomerations (Stockholm, Oslo, and Gothenburg) benefit from competitive territorial advantages such as human capital, knowledge centres, decision-making structures, access to capital, and accessibility.     

日本东京"多中心"城市发展模式的形成、特点与趋势

首先详细回顾并分析了日本东京"多中心"城市发展模式的演变过程,指出东京"多中心"模式的形成原因,主要是为了减少对中心城区基础设施的压力,并且通过在中心城区之外创造新的就业中心来缩短通勤距离.其次探讨并归纳了该模式的形成背景与特点,认为东京"多中心"模式是以发达的公共大交通为基础,城市副中心既是市民的集中居住地,又是特定产业和技术创新的集聚区,同时还是分散首都功能的大都市功能区.最后指出东京城市发展的未来趋势是要形成多功能、集约型的都市构造.     

Linking Urban Field Theory with Gis and Remote Sensing to Detect Signatures of Rapid Urbanization on the Landscape: Toward a New Approach for Characterizing Urban Sprawl

The effect on travel time of the decentralization of land use is an unresolved issue in the literature on travel behavior. Here we report our testing of the contention that commute times are lower in polycentric than in monocentric urban systems with data from the 1998 Netherlands National Travel Survey. Multilevel regression analysis indicates that the role of urban form variables in the explanation of commute times is limited in comparison with micro-level personal and household characteristics. Car commute times are shown to be higher in most poly-centric systems. In addition, car commute times tend to increase with higher residential densities and with the size of daily urban systems (DUS). The results suggest that the relocation of residences and employment in the Netherlands has not by and large led to lower commute times. One reason for this might be the strong spatial planning tradition in the Netherlands.