ABSTRACT
Following a comprehensive overview of the relationship between service industries and development trajectories of cities in the Asia-Pacific, Hutton (2004) concluded that there are some features of the tertiarization process that have not replicated those that occurred earlier in the cities of the advanced ‘Atlantic’ economies. These are explained in part by differences in the way that services are produced and by the way in which the primary role of the private/market sector typical in the cities of the advanced economies is often usurped by the influence of national and local government institutions and policies in the cities of the Asia-Pacific, especially those in East Asia. On the strength of his analysis he proposes a research agenda that includes a suggestion that there is merit in taking a closer look at the ‘specific consequences of rapid services growth for urban (and more categorically metropolitan) areas, and especially the role of tertiarization in processes of urban transition and transformation’ (Hutton, 2004, 66). This transition is driven to a significant degree by globalization as well as the pace of urbanization, affecting not least the cities in Asia that have been growing rapidly in circumstances where value added is created by manufacturing and the utilization of knowledge and expertise that is embedded in production processes, goods, and services (Landry, 2000).
