ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on environmental management policies and practices in varying Southeast Asian contexts to illustrate how the dual practices of limited environmental management and prioritized economic growth have created contaminated communities. It highlights the limitations presented by state-centric environmental management, especially in Southeast Asia, to summarize recent research that has focused on community and user participation in infrastructure and water management policy design and implementation, and to set the stage for later arguments about understanding environmental governance in Bangkok. The chapter presents several examples of how contamination in several Southeast Asian cities is being handled by governments and communities, to highlight how more inclusive strategies could be used to improve environmental conditions. In each case, Jakarta, Manila and Ho Chi Minh City, the environmental management system was comprised of overlapping and underfunded bureaucracies with major shortcomings in terms of human resources and enforcement capacity.
