Urban Development in Southeast Asia (Elements in Politics and Society in Southeast Asia)

Urbanization as a process is rife with inequality, in Southeast Asia as anywhere else, but resistance and contestation persist on the ground. In this element, the author sets out to achieve three goals: 1) to examine the political nature of urban development; 2) to scrutinize the implications of power inequality in urban development discussions; and 3) to highlight topical and methodological contributions to urban studies from Southeast Asia. The key to a robust understanding is groundedness: knowledge about the everyday realities of urban life that are hard to see on the surface but dominate how the city functions, with particular attention to human agency and the political life of marginalized groups. Ignoring politics in research on urbanization essentially perpetuates the power inequities in urban development; this element thus focuses not just on Southeast Asian cities and urbanization per se, but also on critical perspectives on patterns and processes in their development. Cover 1 Title page 3 Copyright page 4 Urban Development in Southeast Asia 5 Contents 6 1 The Politics of Urban Development in Southeast Asia 7 1.1 Southeast Asia as a Postcolonial Region 9 1.2 Urban Development as Power Contestations 10 1.3 Structure of the Element 11 2 Historical “Debris” in Southeast Asia’s Urban Development 12 2.1 From “Cosmic Centers” to “Nationalist Centers” 13 2.2 The “Debris” of the “Colonial City” 15 2.3 The “Debris” of . . . the “City”? 17 2.4 Learning from History 22 3 Planning for Urban Development 24 3.1 Elusive Master Plans 24 3.1.1 Singapore: A Model City? 24 3.1.2 Jakarta: Master Plan 26 3.2 Planning versus Informality? 29 3.3 Planning and “Leveling” 31 4 Studying Urban Development in Southeast Asia 33 4.1 Limitations of Official Datasets 34 4.2 Deciphering “Messiness” from Below 38 4.2.1 The Urban Poor 39 4.2.2 Gendered Spaces 42 4.2.3 Migration 45 4.2.4 Heterogeneity and “In-between” 48 4.3 Groundedness and Multi-Scalar Thinking 51 5 Political Ecology and Environmental Justice 52 5.1 Political Ecology 53 5.1.1 Flooding 53 5.1.2 Waste and Pollution 54 5.1.3 Political Ecology as Urban Development Critique 60 5.2 Urban Social Movements 62 7 Epilogue 76 References 79 Urbanization as a process is rife with inequality, in Southeast Asia as anywhere else, but resistance and contestation persist on the ground. This Element sets out to achieve three goals: 1) to examine the political nature of urban development; 2) to scrutinize the implications of power inequality in urban development discussions; and 3) to highlight topical and methodological contributions to urban studies from Southeast Asia. The key to a robust understanding is groundedness: knowledge about the everyday realities of urban life that are hard to see on the surface but dominate how the city functions, with particular attention to human agency and the political life of marginalized groups. Ignoring politics in research on urbanization essentially perpetuates the power inequities in urban development; this Element thus focuses not just on Southeast Asian cities and urbanization per se but also on critical perspectives on patterns and processes in their development. Sommario fornito dall'editore Urbanization as a process is rife with inequality, in Southeast Asia as anywhere else, but resistance and contestation persist on the ground. This Element sets out to achieve three goals: 1) to examine the political nature of urban development; 2) to scrutinize the implications of power inequality in urban development discussions; and 3) to highlight topical and methodological contributions to urban studies from Southeast Asia. The key to a robust understanding is groundedness: knowledge about the everyday realities of urban life that are hard to see on the surface but dominate how the city functions, with particular attention to human agency and the political life of marginalized groups. Ignoring politics in research on urbanization essentially perpetuates the power inequities in urban development; this Element thus focuses not just on Southeast Asian cities and urbanization per se but also on critical perspectives on patterns and processes in their development--back cover