智慧社会下的城市地理学研究——基于居民活动的视角

智慧社会下,信息通信技术已经渗透到居民日常生活中各个方面的网络/实体活动经历,是理解智慧社会发展的核心。同时,虚拟—实体空间关系、网络—实体活动关系及其对城市地域空间重构与演化的影响一直得到城市地理学者的广泛关注。在综述已有居民活动时空间研究的基础上,指出智慧社会下居民网络—实体活动的关系已经超越简单的替代—促进二元关系,而承载网络与实体活动的虚拟与实体空间也相互交织影响,挑战对实体空间中地方与移动性的理解,并重构虚拟空间中的秩序和规律,丰富智慧社会下城市地理学的研究问题。超越技术决定论与基于技术决定论的虚实空间二元论的讨论范畴,更能反映城市地理学在智慧社会发展话语体系中的地位。与发达国家不同,中国同时经历着快速的信息化与城镇化,对居民网络/实体活动组织及虚拟—实体空间关系的研究不仅提供了新的案例与理论贡献,而且为城镇化的可持续发展提供实践策略。

Urban geography research in the e-society: A perspective from human activity

Overall, the academic research and government/media reports regarding the development of e-society mainly focus on technological progress. The ubiquitous influence of information and communication technology (ICT) on people and the society, however, is largely ignored. The fact is that a multitude of ICT has been penetrated into almost every sphere of people's daily life in the e-society, which exists in their everyday e-activities/physical activities experience. Therefore, the impact of ICT on people and the society, as the key to the understanding of e-society, has emerged in people's e-activities/physical activities experience. Urban geographers have devoted much attention to investigation of the virtual-physical space and e-activities-physical activities relationships and their potential (or actual) effects on the evolution of urban spatial development. Based on a review of spatial-temporal activity literature, this paper points out that the e-activities-physical activities relationship has gone beyond the simple substitution-generation relation. And the virtual and physical space which bear the e-activities and physical activities have interrelated complicatedly, which is far beyond the assumed virtual-physical space dichotomy. This complicated interrelationship has further challenged our traditional understanding of the place and mobility in the physical space and reshaped the orders and rules of virtual space. Furthermore, the exploration beyond the virtual-physical dualism which is stemmed from the technological determinism also highlights the important role of urban geographers in analyzing and guiding the development of e-society. Unlike developed countries where informatization lags behind urbanization, China experiences the rapid urbanization and informatization simultaneously. The research on the interrelationship between physical space and virtual space through human activities/e-activities not only contributes to enriching the literature with new cases but also provides empirical insights for sustainable urbanization in the e-society.