ABSTRACT
One clear pattern, and a major component of rapid urbanization unfolding in middle-income developing countries in the Southeast Asian region, is the development of particular mega-urban regions whose larger parts comprise peri-urban landscapes surrounding traditional city cores. Often regarded as transition zones, these areas are today host to environmental problems that are in many ways distinct from those that are typically found in the city centre or in more remote rural hinterlands. Their characteristics and dynamics are distinct in two senses: first, they constitute a set or chain of environmental outcomes directly resulting from, or linked to, transitional changes and the mixing of urban and rural resource uses; second, they structure a large gap and inequality in basic urban environmental liveability between the peri-urban area and the urban region city core.
