ABSTRACT

The traditional conception of metropolis has been challenged by the emergence of city-regions and large agglomerations. Most of the different conceptualizations share the key feature of polycentricity. Besides, several theories today enrich the study of urban transformations. Introduced by a brief overview of polycentrism, the paper advances a reflection on Milan urban region to discuss features and functions of polycentrism, by questioning whether the shift from monocentric to polycentric patterns is capable of observing the contemporary complexities of urbanization. On such basis, the paper stresses how processes of densification, complexification and diversification of the urban in-between, resulting from multi-scale and multi-topological rationales, can be construed in a perspective of “polycentric post-suburbanization”. The ultimate aim of the paper is to bridge the knowledge gap between polycentrism and contemporary urbanization.

摘要

大都市的传统概念受到城市区域和大型集聚区的挑战。大多数不同的概念化都具有多中心性的关键特征。此外，今天的一些理论丰富了对城市转型的研究。通过对多中心主义的简要概述，本文通过质疑从单中心模式到多中心模式的转变是否能够观察当代城市化的复杂性，从而对米兰市区进行反思，讨论多中心主义的特征和功能。在此基础上，本文强调如何从“多中心后郊区化”的视角来解释多尺度、多拓扑理论导致的中间城市的密集化、复杂化和多样化过程。