ABSTRACT
The economic, political and social changes discussed in earlier chapters manifest themselves differently in urban, rural and natural spaces. This chapter concerns itself with urban spaces in which over 50 per cent of Southeast Asia’s population are expected to live by 2017 (Jones 1997). While the current proportion of people living in urban centres is still low compared to the Americas, Europe and Oceania, the popular rural image of Southeast Asia as a region of paddy farms and village lifestyles is becoming less common as more and more people migrate to the cities. Today Southeast Asia is a region of bustling metropolises, high-rise skyscrapers and burgeoning urban sprawl. In many ways the expanding metropolises of Southeast Asia have come to symbolise the region’s successful pursuit of development, signifying the emergence of the region within global economic networks and flows. Cities and their hinterlands have attracted the bulk of FDI and, in most cases, are far more developed in terms of economies and social services than rural spaces. However one does not have to scratch far beneath the urban mosaic to realise that with development successes comes new challenges that planners will continue to grapple with for years to come.
