Several long-standing mistaken ideas in the theoretical studies and planning practices of Chinese metropolitan regions

With the acceleration of the urbanization process in China,in the highly developed areas such as Yangtze River Delta; Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region;Pearl River Delta Region and the central and southern Liaoning province,the regional spatial organization of metropolises began to turn from a simple pattern with a single city to a complicated pattern with the central city as a core and developing mutally with many other cities and regions.The rudiment of Shanghai metropolitan region,Beijing metropolitan region,Guangzhou metropolitan region,and Shenyang metropolitan region have taken shape.At the same time,some regional metropolitan regions and local metropolitan regions have been formed around some big and medium-sized cities with relatively high economic development.The formation and development of the metropolitan regions with these cities as a core have played a more important and supporting role to the regional social and economic progess.The actualization of development strategy of a metropolitan region has become the common view by consulting the experience of developed countries.The correct induction of metropolitan regional construction and development has become a key issue in the new situation of urban development in China.However,there are still some misunderstandings in the theoretical research of our metropolitan regions,for example,the knowledge of some issues like the geographical nature,formation mechanism,spatial structure,models and scales of such regions is not very scientific,which has led to the blind expansion in the size and scale of the metropolitan regions in our planning and practice.As a result,the planning of internal transportation,land utilization and construction of urban infrastructure within the metropolitan regions lacked feasiblity and scientific support.This paper points out some long-standing mistaken ideas in the theoratical studies and planning practices of the metropolitan regions and analyzes the basic concept,geographic hypostasis,formation mechanism,geographic structure and spatial form,types and size of the metropolitan regions.The author attempts to offer a scientific theoretical guidance to the construction and development of Chinese metropolitan regions in the 21st century.