Due to a spatial turn in the socio-technical transition literature, the geography of energy transitions has recently been taken increasingly seriously, leading to burgeoning research output on regional energy transitions since early 2010. Amidst this wealth of publications, however, it can be difficult to keep track of its diverse and constantly evolving landscape. This editorial therefore aims at developing a framework that allows for bringing multiple approaches to regional energy transitions into conversation with each other and that helps to understand and explain the complexity of these interdependencies in ways that go beyond observing regional variety in energy transitions.

可持续性转型是近20 a欧洲学界的新兴研究领域,它关注既有社会技术系统向更加可持续的生产与消费模式的根本性转变,对不少国家和地区的绿色转型政策实践已经产生了重要的影响。近年来,越来越多学者开始关注可持续性转型与经济地理的交叉融合,可持续性转型地理逐渐发展成为一个新兴的研究议题,着重从空间根植性与多尺度交互2个维度回答“可持续性转型在哪里发生”的问题。论文在简要总结可持续转型理论与分析框架的基础上,系统回顾和评述了转型地理研究进展与不足,并着重从中国的情境提出未来该议题的几个重点方向：① 基于中国语境下的的转型地理概念化和理论框架构建;② 后发地区可持续性转型与绿色产业追赶;③ 城市可持续性转型差异与联系;④ 多尺度交互下转型主体能动性与权力博弈;⑤ 人工智能等新兴技术对可持续转型的影响。

Sustainability transitions focus on the fundamental transformation of the existing socio-technical system towards a more sustainable mode of production and consumption. Emerged in Europe two decades ago, this new research field has already exerted impacts on the green transition policy practices of many countries and regions. In recent years, transition studies have increasingly taken geography into account, resulting in a new paradigm of geography of sustainability transitions. This emerging paradigm focuses on the role of spatial embeddedness and multi-scalar interactions in explaining where transitions take place. This article provides a critical overview of the development in the geography of sustainability transitions research, and suggests five promising avenues for future transition research in the Chinese context: 1) to develop concepts and theorize from the Chinese context; 2) to link sustainability transitions with latecomer regions' industry catch-up; 3) to compare the sustainability transitions in cities with different leading industries; 4) to pay more attention to the role of local agency through the lens of multi-scalar interactions; and 5) to explore the impact of digitalization and artificial intelligence on sustainability transitions.

改革开放以来,在出口导向的产业发展模式驱动下,中国积极加入全球化进程并快速实现产业升级。进入21世纪后,在面临成本上升和制度环境变化等诸多危机和挑战的情况下,中国制造业开始了新一轮的产业升级。这从根本上重塑了产业组织和空间结构,改变着中国制造业在地方、区域乃至全球出口市场中的角色功能和影响力。基于文献分析,论文将产业升级划分为价值链升级和空间升级2种模式,并分别从全球、国家、区域、地方、企业等多尺度视角下探讨了中国产业升级的机制及其影响,得出以下主要结论：① 价值链升级和空间升级现象相互依赖、相互作用,是产业升级的2个侧面,综合两者的分析框架能更全面地反映中国产业升级的现状;② 中国产业在升级模式上体现了复杂多样性,已有研究关注的产业升级模式较为单一,未来应更加关注中国产业升级路径和方式的非线性、复杂性和多元性特征;③ 中国产业升级是由全球、国家、区域、地方、企业等多重尺度力量相互耦合下共同驱动的,透过多元地理尺度融合的分析框架解读产业价值链升级和空间升级机制,才能更好地理解中国产业的发展和赶超之路。

Since the implementation of the reform and opening up policy, driven by the export-oriented developmental pattern, China has deeply joined the globalization process and quickly realized industrial upgrading. However, since the beginning of the twenty-first century, China's manufacturing industry has faced many crises and challenges such as rising costs and institutional changes. In response to these challenges, China's manufacturing industry has begun a new round of industrial upgrading, which fundamentally reshapes the industrial space and organizational structure of the manufacturing industry, changing the function, role, and influence of China's manufacturing in regional and global export markets. Focusing on industrial upgrading, this article first reviewed the research on industrial upgrading pattern, and divided it into industrial value chain upgrading and spatial upgrading. Then, it examined the industrial upgrading mechanism from multiple scales: global, national, regional, local, and enterprise, and drew the following main conclusions: 1) Value chain upgrading and spatial upgrading are two sides of industrial upgrading. Value chain upgrading focuses on organizational restructuring, and spatial upgrading emphasizes geographical restructuring. Spatial upgrading has four types: localization, delocalization, relocalization, and regionalization, which are coupling and interacting with value chain upgrading. An analysis framework combining both can comprehensively reflect the status of industrial upgrading in China. 2) Considering the complex and diverse upgrading phenomena in China, the existing literature on industrial upgrading pattern is relatively simple, and it is necessary to pay more attention to the cross-upgrading path and the non-linear, complex, and diverse nature of China's industrial upgrading in the future. 3) China's industrial upgrading process is driven by the forces from multiple scales of global, national, regional, local, and enterprise. We propose a multi-scale integration perspective that abandons single-perspective, top-down, and hierarchical ways of thinking. Using the multi-scale analysis framework to investigate the upgrading mechanisms can help us to better understand the development and the catching up path of China's industry.

近年来,可持续性转型概念进入经济地理学者视野,用于探究区域绿色技术、消费市场和产业转型的多维因果过程与空间动力机制,已成为演化经济地理学和环境经济地理学新兴议题之一。为掌握该研究动态,本文对2000—2020年来共计2453篇可持续性转型文献进行回顾,重点探讨了转型地理研究进展和理论不足,阐述了经济地理学对可持续性转型研究的理论价值和融入方向。本文发现：① 可持续性转型是创新研究和可持续管理领域热门议题,呈多学科介入特点;其中,转型地理研究正不断崛起,并聚焦区域绿色新兴产业发展的社会-技术共演过程、多尺度动力机制、环境经济和社会效应及其转型地理性等问题。② 经济地理学对转型研究有三个视角优势：时空语境敏感性;转型过程、机制和结果的空间多样性;新产业系统的地方嵌入及其合法化的地理性。③ 经济地理学对可持续性转型研究含三个提升方向：概念内涵深化（含地方、尺度和空间）、多范式互动融合（演化、制度和政治经济地理）、分析框架构建方向（多地理尺度性与多层次视角,区域创新系统与技术创新系统）。④ 中国转型地理研究在三个议题上有广阔前景：基于国家语境敏感的地方转型探索、绿色利基发展与转型空间机制研究、以及区域新产业路径发展与转型研究。

In recent years, the concept of sustainability transitions and its related research have increasingly drawn attention from economic geographers. Sustainability transitions studies aim to investigate the multi-scalar causality of mechanisms and spatial dynamics on how regional green technologies, consuming markets and industrial transformations emerge and develop over time. This research strand has become one of the emerging topics in both evolutionary economic geography and environmental economic geography. To better capture the progress of sustainability transitions studies, this paper conducts a bibliometrics-based literature review based on 2453 articles in the field during the past two decades. Besides, through an in-depth critical review on geographies of transitions, this paper identifies several key theoretical problems and shortcomings in the geographies of transitions literature. It has addressed the theoretical merits and value of economic geography for improving sustainability transitions studies. The findings of the paper are: (1) As one of the most promising research themes in innovation studies, sustainability management and environment science, sustainability transition studies have been increasingly disciplinarily pluralistic. The economic geographical research on sustainability transitions, in particular, focuses on three key research topics, including the co-evolution mechanisms between technologies and societies in regional new green industrial path development, multi-scalar driving forces and agency-structure interactive mechanisms of sustainability transitions, the role of transitions in shaping environmental economic and socio-spatial impacts, and the varieties of transition mechanisms. (2) There are in general three perspective advantages of economic geography for transitions studies that can be identified, namely, spatio-temporal sensitivity, spatial varieties of transition mechanisms, processes and impacts/outcomes, and place embeddedness of new socio-technical regimes in industrial systems and its geographies of legitimation. (3) Three orientations for economic geography to enhancing transitions studies are identified: deepening of geographical concepts (including place, scale and space), interactions and integrations with different approaches in economic geography (namely, transitions with evolutionary, institutional, and geographical political economy), and construction avenues for comprehensive analytical frameworks (integration of geographically multi-scalar perspective with multi-level perspectives, and that of regional innovation systems perspective with the approach of technological innovation systems. (4) Three promising research agendas on geographies of transitions in China are proposed, namely, localized transitions research by incorporating the role of Chinese-specific national contexts, green niche development and spatial mechanisms of its transitions, and regional new industrial path development and its related transition studies.

老工业区重构是经济地理学的重要研究议题。在全球化步伐放缓和全球制造业下行的宏观背景下,老工业区已愈来愈成为各国发展战略制定的核心对象。对近十年有关老工业区重构的中外文献进行细致梳理,指出了当下研究存在范式应用多元化的趋势,但这些范式在概念使用、尺度聚焦、时空侧重和机制解释上存在显著差异,缺乏相互融合和优势互补,面临现实应用瓶颈。特别是,长期用于解释老工业区重构的演化经济地理学,因其忽视多尺度-多主体-多分析单元的能动性作用而难以有效解释重构过程、机制、结果及其背后的地理性。本文将转型研究中的多层次视角同演化范式相结合,提供了一种具备上下因果辩证解释力的多尺度分析框架,能有效解释老工业区重构问题。在此基础上,探讨了未来研究方向。

The restructuring of old industrial areas is one of the most important research topics in economic geography. In the macro context of the slowdown of globalization and the worldwide decrease of manufacturing production and demand, old industrial areas as typical problem regions have increasingly become a core target in national development strategies among many countries. Drawing upon an in-depth critical review of recent literature on the restructuring of old industrial areas in the past decade, this paper addresses the growing trend of variegated adoptions of paradigms in the research including four key approaches, namely, evolutionary economic geography, relational economic geography, institutional economic geography and geographical political economy. It also stresses that the gaps yet comparative merits in conceptual thinking, scale focus, tempo-spatial sensitivity and mechanism/process explanation among these paradigms have not generated enough intellectual interplays and complementation, but rather, have led to paradigmatic fragmentation and even repellence with each other. Despite the diversification in paradigmatic use for research, the increase of “fragmented” rather than “engaged pluralism” potentially hinders the explanatory power of existing theories and approaches in empirical research. In particular, we argue that evolutionary economic geography, arguably the most popular paradigm used in explaining and understanding the restructuring of old industrial areas, clearly suffers from a neglect of the role of multi-scalar and multi-actor agencies and a lack of multiple units of analysis in affecting the restructuring processes, mechanisms, outcomes and their geographies of old industrial areas. Given this, the paper integrates the multi-level perspective (MPL) in sustainability transition studies into the evolutionary economic geography approach. It builds up a multi-scalar analytical framework incorporating analyses of both downward and upward causation with different geographical scales, in which the interplay of micro-level change agency-based niche, meso-level regional path developmental regime and macro-level political-economic context landscape is positioned as the core for analyzing the restructuring of old industrial areas. This comprehensive multi-scalar framework is able to offer a better understanding of the restructuring of old industrial areas. Based on that, we further suggest several key orientations and agendas for future research on the topic.

Sustainability is increasingly becoming a core focus of geography, linking subfields such as urban, economic, and political ecology, yet strategies for achieving this goal remain illusive. Socio-technical transition theorists have made important contributions to our knowledge of the challenges and possibilities for achieving more sustainable societies, but this body of work generally lacks consideration of the influences of geography and power relations as forces shaping sustainability initiatives in practice. This paper assesses the significance for geographers interested in understanding the space, time, and scalar characteristics of sustainable development of one major strand of socio-technical transition theory, the multi-level perspective on socio-technical regime transitions. We describe the socio-technical transition approach, identify four major limitations facing it, show how insights from geographers – particularly political ecologists – can help address these challenges, and briefly examine a case study (GMO and food production) showing how a refined transition framework can improve our understanding of the social, political, and spatial dynamics that shape the prospects for more just and environmentally sustainable forms of development.

Due to a spatial turn in the socio-technical transition literature, the geography of energy transitions has recently been taken increasingly seriously, leading to burgeoning research output on regional energy transitions since early 2010. Amidst this wealth of publications, however, it can be difficult to keep track of its diverse and constantly evolving landscape. This editorial therefore aims at developing a framework that allows for bringing multiple approaches to regional energy transitions into conversation with each other and that helps to understand and explain the complexity of these interdependencies in ways that go beyond observing regional variety in energy transitions.

The temporality of agency plays a fundamental role in regional development but has received little attention in economic geography and regional studies. This paper zooms in on two aspects of temporality: the temporality of intentions and the temporality of consequences. The former refers to actors’ perception and valuation of opportunities in the near and distant future, whereas the latter refers to the short- and long-term consequences of actions. This paper studies the temporality of agency in the context of regional development. It investigates how short- and long-term intentions motivate different types of agency, how different types of agency affect short- and long-term regional development outcomes and which conditions enable or constrain different types of agency. We illustrate our arguments with an in-depth case study covering the regional development of a labour market in Norway over the last 20 years.

The study of regional growth paths is a key theme in economic geography and of elemental interest for regional development. This paper addresses the interplay between path-dependent, structural forces and the construction and utilization of opportunities through agentic processes. Extending the evolutionary framework, it is argued that not only history but also perceived futures influence agentic processes in the present and thus shape regional development paths. The paper discusses the relevance and interdependencies of three types of agency with distinct theoretical roots, namely Schumpeterian innovative entrepreneurship, institutional entrepreneurship and place-based leadership, as main drivers of regional structural change.

This paper aims to understand the role of green entrepreneurs in urban sustainability transitions. We propose an analytical framework combining transition approaches and green entrepreneurship from a relational lens. It includes four processes: emergence of green entrepreneurs, multi-scalar interest coordination, empowering through anchoring, and struggling with the regime at the urban scale. This framework is illustrated through an empirical analysis of the role of green entrepreneurs in the development of the solar water heater industry in China’s Solar City. The analysis unravels how the local institutional contexts and multi-scalar relations empowered local green entrepreneurs to become system builders for urban transitions.

在经济转型新阶段,如何突破已有资源条件的束缚,创造新的产业发展路径是区域经济增长的突破口。路径依赖和路径突破是区域创造产业发展路径的两种途径,已有演化经济地理学研究证实区域生产结构的演化依赖地区已有生产能力,是一种路径依赖的结果,而谁是突破区域现有生产能力实现新路径创造的开拓者却尚未得知。本文基于1999-2012年中国337个地级城市的424个四位数产业数据,沿用Hidalgo等人对生产能力的定义,研究中国产业演化过程中路径突破的可能,结果发现：地区新产业的进入以及已有产业的退出有助于地区突破对原有生产结构的依赖,是区域产业发展新路径的创造者。政府补贴一方面有利于地区现有生产能力的提升,增强地区路径依赖趋势;另一方面可为地区带来新的路径,实现路径突破并为区域创造新的发展机会。此外,政府补贴影响产业演化路径选择的效用受地方财政能力限制,并在空间上存在显著差异。

In evolutionary economics, the notion of path creation has attracted much attention in recent years. Previous research has expounded the possibility of path dependence and path creation in the process of regional industrial evolution, but it remains unknown that who changes the existing production capacity and accomplishes path creation. This article focuses on regional production capacity, and applies the indicator of density defined by Hidalgo. Based on the data of 424 four-digit industry of 337 prefecture-level cities in China from 1999 to 2012, this article discusses the path creation of China's industrial evolution. It is found that the entry and exit of an industry would break the original production structure of a region and become the creator of a new path. Governmental subsidies, on the one hand, can promote the development of a region's existing production capacity to enhance the regional's path dependence trend, but also can influence industry dynamics and accelerate the process of path creation. The selection of evolutionary path has significant regional differences. This study will help deepen the understanding of the change of China's industrial structure and its regional differentiation, and provides new evidence from developing countries for the development of evolutionary economic geography.

区域发展是区域产业不断演化、转型与升级的过程。近年来发展起来的演化经济地理学旨在通过分析企业进入、成长、衰退和退出等动态过程阐释企业、产业、集群、网络、城市和区域的空间演化,认为区域产业发展演化遵循路径依赖,并决定于产业技术关联。然而路径依赖式演化理论过于强调内生发展过程,忽视了外生因素和制度变革带来的路径创造机会。中国处于经济转型时期,区域产业结构变动剧烈。技术关联推动了区域产业演化,显示中国区域产业演化具有路径依赖性,同时市场化、全球化和分权化的经济转型过程为区域产业发展创造了新路径。外部联系、制度安排、行为主体的战略性行为等促进了路径创造。

Regional development is a process in which industries develop, transform and upgrade constantly. Evolutionary economic geography understands the spatial evolution of firm, industry, cluster, network, city and region through the lens of firm entry, growth and exit, and argues that regional industrial evolution is path dependent and determined by inter-industrial technological relatedness. However, path dependence theory overemphasizes the endogenous factors in regional industrial development and ignores the critical role of external linkages and institutional factors, which would bring path creation for regional development. In China, there has been dramatic transformation in regional industrial structure since the economic reform. Empirical studies indicate that technological relatedness has indeed significantly determined regional industrial evolution, suggesting a path dependent process. Meanwhile, marketization, globalization and regional decentralization provide great opportunities to create new industries for regional development. In particular, external linkage, institutional factors and purposeful and strategic actions of local actors would stimulate path creation.

1990年代后期以来,经济地理学出现了演化思潮,一些新的概念为分析产业的空间演化提供了有效的理论工具。基于演化经济地理学中的路径依赖理论,以长三角地区的物联网产业为例,探讨了新兴产业兴起和演化过程的地方差异。重点选取无锡、上海、南京和杭州四个城市,采用多案例比较的方法,从产业发展的历史基础、集群状况、政府政策,以及主要动力机制等方面,分析了4个案例的异同点,并突出这些城市在区域经济和制度环境方面的差异。对产业演化机制的讨论还发现,技术基础、政策推动和偶然性事件是新兴技术产业初始发展阶段的主要动因。

The geography of innovation and the regional development have attracted considerable scholarly attention, especially the spatial evolution processes of new technologies, enterprises, and industries. The development of a particular industry varies across locations, and more work is needed to study an emerging industry from a geographical perspective. The evolutionary economic geography provides effective theoretical tools for the analysis of the spatial evolution of industries and contributes to a better cognition of the mechanism for the evolution of economic landscapes. A significant agglomeration has been found in the Internet of things (IoT) industry in the following locations: Yangtze River Delta region, Pearl River Delta region, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (Bohai Rim) region, and some developed cities in the central and western regions of China. As the origin of the IoT industry, the Yangtze River Delta region has a full-fledged industry chain. Based on the path dependence theory, this paper explores the local differences of the emergence and evolution of the IoT industry in four cities of the Yangtze River Delta region: Wuxi, Shanghai, Nanjing, and Hangzhou. In Wuxi, occasional opportunity and local government are the significant determinants, while the development of IoT industry in Shanghai is driven by the industrial base and innovative institutional environment. For Nanjing and Hangzhou, the interactions between the fundamental conditions of industry and the state policies are the major impetuses. In conclusion, technological base, government policy, and occasional opportunity are the main drivers in the initial stage of emerging industry in China.

区域经济弹性是后危机时代经济地理学一个热门研究议题。已有研究侧重于将区域经济弹性概念化成区域经济体在受到冲击或干扰后所表现出来的一种应对能力和手段,但缺乏动态演化观。基于制度演化视角,将区域经济弹性概念化成一种制度演化过程,并根据制度演化的不同模式（如层叠、转化和替代等）,提出了一种分析和理解区域经济弹性差异的方法。该方法将被应用到中国两个典型资源枯竭型城市（山东枣庄和辽宁阜新）的经济弹性比较分析中。通过关注2000年后两地新产业的诞生过程和机理,结果显示：枣庄的经济弹性同制度良性层叠和转化这两种模式密切相关,这两种模式有利于促进区域产业更新和多样化;然而,阜新的经济弹性则表现出一种对原有制度的不断厚化过程,使得在产业上体现了较强的路径持续和拓展性。制度演化视角能结合区域经济弹性的过程、能力和结果这三个方面,有助于提升区域经济弹性的理论和实证研究。

The existing literature on economic resilience of cities and regions shows that attention has been mainly paid to its characterization as capabilities and outcomes, while little research has been conducted on it as processes. This paper aims to address this knowledge gap. Drawing upon institutional change theories, this paper proposes an approach, and tries to explain how different modes of the institutional change affect industrial evolution and thus generate divergent resilience of cities. The approach is applied to the two case studies of Chinese mining cities, namely Zaozhuang in Shandong province and Fuxin in Liaoning province, which are both faced with resource depletion since 2000. By focusing on the ways in which new industries emerge, the empirical investigation illustrates that Zaozhuang's resilience involves positive layering and conversion that have enabled industrial renewal and diversification, whereas Fuxin's resilience unfolds with institutional thickening, characterized by industrial adjustment with strong effects of path persistence and extension. This study suggests that the institutional change approach can better update the understanding of regional resilience by incorporating processes, capabilities and outcomes.

突如其来的新冠肺炎疫情在全球蔓延肆虐,国家间和区域间的人员、货物流动阻滞,对全球生产网络带来了巨大冲击。受此影响,涉外企业纷纷出现了与国际市场、供应链、劳动力、金融资本之间的短暂割裂。在此外部冲击面前,基于全球经济深度链接的战略耦合理论,无法有效解释全球生产网络出现的被动性、暂时性、突发性的耦合断裂。以江苏省昆山市为例,通过深入访谈和调研,重点研究地方政府能动性在维系战略耦合联系中的作用机制。研究发现,昆山政府以本地产业链供应链信息的系统掌握为基础,综合运用协调整合、政策支撑、资源调配等能力,修复导致耦合断裂的环节或重建新耦合。本文提出外部冲击型耦合断裂这一概念,丰富拓展了对战略耦合动态性的认识。其次,本文深化了对政府-全球生产网络互动联结的理解,讨论了地方政府在维系战略耦合联系中的能动性作用和局限性。

Since 2020, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has caused huge impacts on people's health and daily life, as well as economic development and employment worldwide. People were quarantined, transportation was blocked, and borders were closed. As a result of the pandemic, global production networks (GPNs), which organize production in a highly decentralized form and in a global scale, have been negatively affected to the greatest extent. This phenomenon demonstrates the temporary, shock-driven discontinuities and ruptures of strategic couplings in GPNs, which tend to be relatively overlooked in the existing GPN literature. In China, when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out earliest, a large number of firms and factories were shut down and its economy once came to a standstill. However, China's economy soon recovered. This article argues that the rapid recovery has largely been driven by the strong, active and effective interventions of Chinese government actors at various levels, including the Chinese central as well as local and regional governments. This article uses the case of Kunshan in Jiangsu province as a case study to illustrate how the local government in particular played key roles in enabling and facilitating the restoration of coupling ruptures. Kunshan is highly plugged into GPNs, with a high level of foreign direct investments and exports. As such, it was heavily affected by the global pandemic initially. Specifically, this article illustrates four inter-connected problems that globally-plugged firms tended to face under the economic shock caused by the pandemic, that is, in terms of their access to the market, suppliers, labour, and finance. This article then shows how the local government of Kunshan utilized and mobilized the unique power and resources, namely, local industrial information, coordinating capacity, policy tools, and resource allocation capacity, to help firms overcome such challenges and in turn enabled and facilitated Kunshan's recovery from coupling ruptures. However, this article demonstrates the limitations of the local government alone in mediating crisis-driven coupling ruptures.

This article uses the Dimensions of Urban Energy Transitions (DUET) framework to analyse energy transitions in two Chinese cities at different development stages and provide insights into the mechanisms underlying decarbonised industrialisation. The results show that a ‘green’ coalition between industrial actors and local governments is critical to the initiation and scale-up of low-carbon innovations that provide strong endogenous incentives for proactive transitions. The study unveils the relevance of technology-specific characteristics and the potential countering effect of urban politics in shaping the outcomes of energy transitions, adding both nuance and depth to the DUET framework.

环境公正研究关注人民生活质量的空间公正问题。从环境经济地理学的角度,本研究以广州市为研究对象,采用1995年、2004年、2013 年的工业企业数据和1990年、2000 年、2010 年的人口普查数据,运用空间可视化工具和多尺度地理加权回归模型等方法,分析了广州市污染企业的分布及其与区域人口社会特征关系的时空变化,然后探讨转型背景下中国城市污染企业分布的环境公正问题。研究发现,广州市污染企业空间分布经历由中心城区集聚向近郊区和边界地带集聚的过程,在城市产业空间重构与社会空间分异的共同作用下,污染企业空间分布的环境不公正问题由最初表现不明显转变为全市范围的阶层差异与企业污染负担之间关系,具有不同于西方环境不公正现象的特征和成因。

Environmental justice studies focus on the spatial justice of people's life quality. With the rapid development of urbanization and industrialization, industrial pollution has led to intensifying environmental degradation. Due to the spatial distribution of polluting enterprises, the levels of environmental degradation vary among urban settlements in the city. Recently, this variance has become a major environmental justice concern in China. Based on this understanding, it is imperative to understand the relationship between distribution of polluting enterprises and the social characteristics of the regional population from the spatial and temporal perspective. Cities with many industrial enterprises can lead to differential distributions in residential settlements. Guangzhou, a typical city, is selected as the empirical case. Based on a collection of enterprise census of 1995, 2004 and 2013 and the population census data of 1990, 2000 and 2010, this study analyzed the distribution of polluting enterprises and its spatial changes using ArcGIS visualization tool, and further examined the spatio-temporal changes of relationship between polluting enterprises and sociodemographic characteristics of regional population in Guangzhou by geographic weighted regression model. We find that the clustering of polluting enterprises has transferred from the central city to the suburban and border areas. The regression results reveal that old people and immigrants had become the main groups greatly affected by enterprise pollution in the 1990s, whereas differences among social classes including social stability, educational level and income level are related to the spatial distribution of polluting enterprises since 2000. This change of spatial relationship reflects the reconfiguration of urban industries and socio-spatial differentiation in modern Guangzhou. Further analysis discovers that the spatially influenced environmental injustice of pollution evolves from insignificance to a significantly city-wide relationship between different social classes and the pollution burden of enterprises. This evolution is different from the characteristics and mechanisms in a Western context. Compared to their Western counterparts, the public environmental resources are endowed with commodity attributes and the fundamental driving force to redistribute spatial environmental benefits through profit capture under the Chinese social market system. Based on our findings, this research further calls attention to seriously considering the environmental rights of low-income classes and emphasizing the need of public participation when making relevant policies.

环境经济地理学是经济地理学反思资源环境在学科内部边缘化的产物,旨在重建经济地理学理论与资源环境之间的联系。历经近20年的发展,环境经济地理学研究片段化、地位边缘化的问题无明显改观。为此,本文回溯了环境经济地理学的发展思路,归纳了以环境经济地理学名义开展的研究工作,探讨了环境经济地理学发展面临的挑战与应对。研究发现：① 环境经济地理学过去20年的发展思路是以经济地理学理论为基础,探讨适应资源环境变化的经济发展与空间布局模式,凝练了环境治理和绿色转型两个研究主题。② 面向环境治理,环境经济地理学应用全球价值链和全球生产网络理论,探讨企业和地方如何实现环境和经济效益的共同提升;同时,借助区位分析评估作为区位因子的环境规制如何影响经济布局,发现了诸多“经典假说”的反例。③ 面向绿色转型,环境经济地理学与演化经济地理学结合,应用区域多样化和路径创造理论,分析了区域绿色转型的条件和过程。④ 环境经济地理学的未来发展需要克服范式差异、加强问题导向、推动理论创新,挖掘中国丰富的环境经济地理问题所蕴含的机遇。

Environmental economic geography emerges as a reflection of the marginalization of the environment within the discipline of economic geography. It seeks to re-establish the linkage between economic geography and the environment. After almost two decades of development, environmental economic geography is still suffering from its poly-vocal, fragmented, and marginalized issues. This study scrutinizes the debates over the research agenda on environmental economic geography and reviews two primary strands of the literature. On this basis, this study discusses challenges for the future development of environmental economic geography. This study comes to four conclusions. Firstly, the development of environmental economic geography follows the theoretical advances in economic geography. It explore how environmental changes modify the spatial patterns of economic development. It also investigate how the spatial configuration of economic activities responds to the rising environmental risks and intensifying resource scarcity. Two research themes emerge, namely environmental governance and green transition. Secondly, environmental economic geography uses the theoretical framework of the Global Value Chain (GVC) and Global Production Network (GPN) to investigate how firms and regions can simultaneously upgrade in environmental and economic terms. It also seeks to establish the linkages between GVC/GPN governance and environmental governance. On the other hand, environmental economic geography identifies environmental regulation as a locational factor and examines its role in the location choice model. The empirical result offers various counter-examples for classical hypotheses, such as the Pollution Haven Hypothesis, the Porter Hypothesis, and the Environmental Kuznets Curve Hypothesis. Thirdly, environmental economic geography combines its theoretical interests with the theoretical advances in evolutionary economic geography. Particularly, the regional diversification theory and the path creation theory are incorporated into the empirical studies of environmental economic geography, which seek to unravel the conditions and processes of green transitions. Based on these theories, recent studies also offer some predictors for the regional green transition. Lastly, this study proposes that environmental economic geography is still suffering from the divergence between natural science and social science on research paradigm. Besides, the theoretical development of environmental economic geography is subject to a late-comer disadvantage. In this regard, it requires environmental economic geography to become more problem-oriented in the future, embracing the opportunities embedded in the issues for China’s sustainable development.