The City In Southeast Asia

The extended metropolitan regions of Southeast Asia are the dynamic cores of their national economies and societies and the frontiers of accelerating globalization. This title explores ways of moving beyond outmoded paradigms of the Third World City or a Southeast Asian city 'type'.

A social history of cosmopolitanism in Southeast Asia's ethnically diverse port cities, seen within the global context of the interwar era.

Theorizing the Southeast Asian City as Text examines the ways in which culture, ethnicity, languages, traditions, governance, policies and histories interplay in the creation of the urban experiences in contemporary Southeast Asian cities. It focuses on the ways in which urban spatial forms are textual experiences, subject to interpretative strategies and the influence of other discourses. In addition it also analyzes the experiences of modernization in such cities, but also in terms of the strategies of containment, refurbishment, and loss which this has occasioned.

Urbanization occurs in tandem with development. Countries in Southeast Asia need to build - individually and collectively - the capacity of their cities and towns to promote economic growth and development, to make urban development more sustainable, to mitigate and adapt to climate change, and to ensure that all groups in society share in the development. This book is a result of a series of regional discussions by experts and practitioners involved in the urban and planning of their countries. It highlights urbanization issues that have implications for regional - including ASEAN - cooperation, and provides practical recommendations for policymakers. It is a first step towards assisting governments in the region to take advantage of existing collaborative partnerships to address the urban transformation that Southeast Asia is experiencing today.

Critical Reflections draws together the multi-disciplinary research of scholars working in/on cities across Southeast Asia. The fourteen essays collected in the volume are organised into three thematic sections: (re)conceptualisation, competition and intervention. Collectively, these reflections contribute to and interrogate the expanding urban and regional studies literature. The volume constitutes a critical corrective to the existing literature which all-too-often seeks to diagnose contemporary urban trends everywhere from a small number of, mostly Western, "paradigmatic cases". Yet, while acknowledging the increasing interconnectedness and shared global orientation of most cities in Southeast Asia, the volume is wary of positing an equally generalising regional model. Individually, these essays attend to the diversity of contemporary urban experiences in Southeast Asia.

From vietnam to Indonesia, Singapore to Thailand, Southeast Asia's economies are growing at unprecedented rates. The metropolises are the heart of economically dynamic Southeast Asia. Singapore is bidding to be a global 'information city'; Bangkok is acquiring an international reputation as a business and transport centre; Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur have rapidly expanding core business centres dominated by sleek, highrise office blocks; and Ho Chi Minh City is certain to play a key role in Vietnam's re-emergence into the world economy. Yet this high-profile image presents only one dimension of the Southeast Asian metropolis. This book penetrates the facade of contemporary growth, exploring the pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial city. Asian Metropolis: Urbanisation and the Southeast Asian City describes the divergence of the urbanisation process and urban development under capitalist and socialist regimes, and the gradual convergence in the 1990s. It looks at the problems in the fast growing metropolis, from the exploitation of women in the labour force, to the over-stretched infrastructure and urban environmental crises. Southeast Asia's metropolises have played a key role in the region's growth. Unless greater attention is given to the sustainability of these large, complex settlements, they threaten to undermine the societies that created and continue to depend upon them.