活动的地方秩序嵌套"这一概念源于瑞典时间地理学者哈格斯特朗对人类活动复杂性及其背后蕴含的社会规则的思考,强调人类活动与其发生所需的时空资源配置之间的关系,隐含人类行为背后所需的各种资源在时间上的排列和空间上的组合规律。本文系统解读了"(活动的)地方秩序嵌套"的概念内涵、形成与符号表达,借助已有研究案例梳理不同地理空间尺度下地方秩序及其嵌套过程,以及目前这一领域的最新研究进展,在此基础上尝试提出这一概念在中国城市空间行为与规划中的研究与应用方向。

Pockets of Local Order(POLO) is one of the most important concepts in time-geography, which were put forward by Swedish geographer Torsten Hägerstrand in English since 1970s. It elaborated the complexity of human activities and its underlining of social rules. Hägerstrand thought that the temporal rhythm and spatial pattern of human activity is not entirely haphazard. There must be certain rules to follow. That is the "local order". In order to carry out any project smoothly, actors need to occupy space and to consume certain amount of time which are sufficiently free from encroachment. That is the "space-time pocket", where a local order can be maintained. It depicted how different resources were arranged and stored up to fulfil the projects. So in his view, researchers should first designate a meaningful geographical district with a definite spatial boarder, and then observe the orders operating in it and how different actors perform in the same diorama. This article aims to introduce these new developments of POLO. With existing case studies, this article tries to show how local orders at different geographical and temporal scales nested together to impact on individual and organizational projects and paths. We introduced the examples of local order in the valley where Hägerstrand lived in during his childhood and the relation between daily household programmes and the local order of the factory viewed in a long-term perspective to show the orders at macro scale. And by analyzing the elementary events in milking cows and the resources used for performing the activities for milking, and when and in what order they are used, we try to explain the local orders at micro scale.