在廿一世紀開始的此時此刻，全世界的城市和社會都共同正在經歷一個在我們自身結構內的深刻歷史性轉化。全球經濟藉助1970年代技術革命的巨大力量，已改變了我們的生產、消費、管理、資訊傳播和思考表達的方式。重要的策略性活動都是在全球政策和交換網絡中被組織，從金融市場到視聽訊息。世界是不對稱，相互依賴地接合在全球網絡中。這就是?們要面對的結構性轉化所透露的新世紀，資訊（信息）時代、全球經濟、與網絡社會。而都會區域（或者說，城市區域、鉅形城市、城市群、城市連綿區）已被視為是廿一世紀的新空間形式。本文則針對全球網絡中的北臺都會區域與臺北市，面臨前述結構性力量所推動的巨大變局時，它的都市政策研擬首先要面對的都市與社會現實，提出分析。換句話說，這也是一個正在橫渡全球化惡水中的地方政府，摸索它的新角色轉化時必須先面對的地方真實情境。

　　　　　Over the world in the beginning of the twenty-first century, cities and society are undergoing a deep historical transformation in their structure. In terms of the huge capacity of the technological revolution in the 1970s, the global economy has changed the ways of our production, consumption, management, informing and thinking. The strategically dominant activities are organized in global decision-making and exchange networks, from financial markets to audiovisual messages. The world is asymmetrically interdependently articulated into the global networks. This is the new century of structural transformation we have to face, i.e. the information age, the global economy, and the network society. And the metropolitan region (or city-region, mega-city etc.) has been considered as a new spatial form in the twenty-first century. Facing the tremendous changes in global economic restructuring and its urban restructuring, this essay focuses on the Taipei city as a global city and the Northern Taiwan as a metropolitan region. This is the necessary analysis of the urban and social reality for proposing urban policies in the future. In other words, this is also the local real situation for a local government crossing the trouble water of globalization to search for its new role in state transformation.