Urban transformations: centres, peripheries, and systems

摘要

Change is perhaps the best organising concept with which first to approach this very diverse collection of case studies of urban places located across the globe. But whilst such diversity certainly enrichens our understanding of urban processes that have occurred over the last decade or so in different settings, it also makes the task of identifying a running thread somewhat more arduous. At the outset, Donoghue points out that the volume comes out of research conducted by members of the International Geographical Union Urban Commission. Hence, the overall aim is to provide a 'snapshot' of the gamut of urban change that reflects the research interests of this collective, albeit with a focus on the thematic prism of centre-periphery dynamics, as intimated in the title. In addition, many contributions cast this dynamics onto the canvas of the financial/economic crisis of 2007-2008, looking at how different urban places react to and address its manifold effects. What emerges, according to Donoghue, is the resilient character of cities, a theme that may well configure a running thread, although not an explicit one.