ON THREE BASIC PROBLEMS OF URBAN GEOGRAPHICAL STUDIES
讨论了城市地理学中理论研究和应用研究的区别、宏观与微观城市分析的不同基础，以及变量选择的关键在于信息容量而非其他属性，旨在澄清该领域的混淆问题。
Three basic questions are discussed in order to make clear the problems confused in urban geographical field. First, the attribute of studies, theoretical research is different from applied study: the former requires data to be continuous in time and entire in space, but the latter demand the data to be new. For theoretical study, whether or not the data are new is insignificant. Second, the level of studies, macro-urban study is different from micro-urban analysis: the former is based on the entropy-maximizing principle and relies mainly on physical analogy, and the latter based on the utility-maximizing idea and depends chiefly on socio-economical analysis. Three, selection of variables for urban geographical analyses: the key lies in the information capacity of a variable instead of the size, attribute, or others reflected by it. The root of the problems is revealed and the solutions are provided to snag the way of the development of Chinese geography.