50th Anniversary Symposium, Journal of Regional Science, New York, April 2009

区域科学的独特之处在于它注重将地理学和经济学联系起来的正式理论和模型。经济活动与地理位置密切相关。生产和人口中心聚集在一起，经济活动的地点与影响发展中国家和发达国家人民福祉的区域财富和差距的模式有关。2008年，经济学家保罗·克鲁格曼因将贸易和地理联系起来的理论创新而被授予诺贝尔奖，诺贝尔奖评选委员会的总结中引用了许多地区性科学家的作品。作为一个领域，地区性科学家在发展解释经济活动地理分布的理论、统计分析地理数据的方法、城市经济理论、对交通和土地利用规划模型的方法学贡献以及许多其他发展方面一直是创新者之一。虽然在全球化、城市化和地区差异的时代，地理学、经济学以及人口学和规划等相关领域的重要性正在上升，但学科往往在知识孤岛中运作，并以限制跨学科受精的方式叠加现有的范式，而跨学科受精是早期区域科学的标志。作为其50周年庆祝活动的一部分，《区域科学杂志》将于2008年4月在纽约联邦储备银行举办一次研讨会。区域科学和相关学科的主要学者将参加讲习班，就区域科学及其学科伙伴的未来机遇和智力挑战进行广泛和前瞻性的讨论。研讨会将为学者提供一个机会，让他们进行坦率的讨论和交流，这是在标准的期刊提交过程中、通过电子邮件或在典型的学术会议上不会发生的。这次研讨会将使人们对区域科学的未来有一个更加完美的展望。专题讨论会的成果将通过《区域科学杂志》50周年特刊、将在纽约联邦储备银行的公开网站上张贴的出版前工作文件、将在网站上张贴的摘要文章以及在特刊出版前一年的区域科学会议的全体会议上广泛传播。专题讨论会将提供一个极好的机会，使与会者能够评估该领域所处的位置以及需要做些什么来促进区域科学及其相关学科未来的变革。讲习班还应有助于解决区域科学、地理学和经济学中使用的范例和方法之间的脱节问题，从而促进互补领域和学科之间更紧密的跨学科联系。

Regional science has been distinguished by its focus on formal theories and models that link geography and economics. Economic activity is intimately linked to geography. Production and population centers cluster, and the location of economic activity is linked to patterns of regional wealth and disparities that affect the well-being of persons in developing and developed nations. In 2008, the economist Paul Krugman was awarded the Nobel Prize for theoretical innovations linking trade and geography, and the summary from the Nobel selection committee included citations to the works of many regional scientists. As a field, regional scientists have been among the innovators in developing theories that explain the geographic distribution of economic activity, methods to statistically analyze geographic data, theories of urban economies, methodological contributions to transportation and land use planning models, and a host of other developments. While the importance of geography, economics, and cognate fields like demography and planning is on the rise in an era of globalization, urbanization, and regional disparities, disciplines often operate in intellectual silos and ply existing paradigms in ways that limit the cross-disciplinary fertilization that was a hallmark of early regional science. As part of the celebration of its 50th anniversary, the Journal of Regional Science will conduct a workshop at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in April 2008. Leading scholars in regional science and related disciplines will participate in the workshop to engage in a broad-ranging and forward-looking discussion of future opportunities and intellectual challenges for regional science and its disciplinary partners. The symposium will provide an opportunity for scholars to engage in frank discussions and exchanges that would not occur in the standard journal submission process, by email, or at typical academic conferences. The symposium will lead to a more polished vision of regional science's future. The results of the symposium will be broadly disseminated through the 50th anniversary special issue of the Journal of Regional Science, through pre-publication working papers that will be posted on a publicly accessible web site at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, through a summary piece that will be posted on the web site, and through plenary sessions at regional science conferences throughout the year in advance of the special issue's publication.The symposium will provide an excellent opportunity to enable participants to assess what where the field stands and what needs to be done to facilitate future transformative changes in regional science and its cognate disciplines. The workshop also should help address disconnects between the paradigms and approaches used in regional science, geography, and economics, thereby spurring stronger interdisciplinary linking among the complementary fields and disciplines.