中文摘要：

自1990年欧洲社区委员会（CZC）在《城市环境绿皮书》中正式提出“紧凑城市”理念以来，已成为实现城市可持续发展目标最具影响力的理念之一。虽然紧凑城市在理论层面具有诸多正面效果，但其究竟能否支持可持续目标仍然存在诸多质疑。从整体性的反思入手，对紧凑城市理念展开系统检讨，旨在理性认识紧凑城市的现实效果和内在局限。分析结果显示：①在理论构成层面，紧凑城市的基本理论观点对于可持续发展目标的响应尚存在缺陷，一是对于生态、社会和经济维度的影响机制不明确；二是忽略了甚至有可能会加剧城市面对灾害的脆弱性风险；②在实施效果层面，当前紧凑城市的各种实践探索已经逐渐暴露出社会和经济方面的诸多问题；③在地域适用性层面，由于发展中国家与西方发达国家在政治、经济、社会以及城市化进程方面存在本质差异，源自西方城市化现实的紧凑城市理念在发展中国家的适用性值得商榷，我国需要结合自身城市化进程的特定情况和紧迫问题，超越对紧凑城市理念的简单借鉴，探索适合国情的可持续城市形态理论。

英文摘要：

＂Compact city＂ has become one of the most influential concept to achieve sustainable development since it was proposed in the ＇Green Paper on Urban Environment＇ by the European Community committee （CEC） in 1990. Although a compact city contains some positive effects at the theoretical level, whether the concept could support sustainability in practice is still in question. The purpose of this article is to discuss the real effects and limitations of the compact city concept through a comprehensive review. Firstly, at the theoretical levels, compact city concept is ambiguous about its impacts on ecological, social and economical sustainability and it neglects of the vulnerability of cities caused by disasters. Secondly, at the practical level, compact city strategies have led to various social and econommic problems. Thirdly, in terms of transferability, the compact city concept originated from the western developed countries, which have fundamentally different political, economic and social systems as well as stage of urbanization from those of developing countries. The paper finally calls for devel- oping countries to take into consideration their uniqueness to find their suitable sustainable urban form.