ABSTRACT
Private city formations have immediate roots in the wave of privatization that began to sweep across the globe in the 1980s, as part of emerging neoliberal economic policies. The idea of a private city, or a private city space, is critical to the dynamics of social change, and is a response especially to the changing flows of global capital. As Asia continues to develop new economic and political power, it has brought a renewed interest in and commitment to the idea of the city; in this renewed attention to urban form, however, one can glimpse a transformation in the very basic ideas of what constitutes a city. Privatization, in the common sense of shifting ownership or management of public interests to private corporations, is not new — although it has intensified since the 1980s as part of the global shift towards neoliberal governmental policies.
