ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the disconnect between urban life and the real urban situation, and an ideologically informed imagining of what these things should be in Bangkok. To the conservative, elitist imagination, the city's urban life—its tourist appeal—presents as disorder, showing Thailand ‘in a bad light’, provoking the desire for a regime of discipline and ‘good order’, duly prosecuted by a military junta following a 2014 coup. Bangkok's streets have also long presented a different sort of chaos, in polluting gridlock where any resolution has been plagued by rivalries between competing politico-bureaucratic fractions, also duly confronted by the post-2014 junta. The streets and public places of Bangkok have long presented yet a further level of disorder that challenges the military mind, as these are the stage on which the theatre of national life plays out, in rallies, protests, uprisings, coups, and massacres. At a tactical level this has commonly manifested as royalist-elitist-military versus students. Thailand is almost completely dependent on imported fossil fuels, while its limited hydro is also mostly imported; hence addressing the city's inefficiencies through a metro and other electrification is fraught. Finally, the city is flood prone, facing existential catastrophe from global warming. So, is Bangkok sustainable?
