Directors of Urban Change in Asia

THIS BOOK IS based on papers presented at the international workshop Mega-urbanization in Asia and Europe: Directors of Urban Change in a Comparative Perspective, held in Leiden in December 2002. It argues that current urban social science research often neglects the role of those individuals who are decisive for urban change, and instead over-emphasizes impersonal aggregative social processes as the main determinants of urban structure and change. The editor thus justifies the theme of the book to “bring individual man back in” to replace structural societal processes. The book defines the directors of urban change as actors with explicit ideas about city development who are in a position to formulate and influence urban transformation.
The book describes 13 Asian cities in alphabetical order: Colombo, Guangzhou, Hanoi, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Makassar, Manila, Nanjing, Semarang, Singapore, Surabaya, Tehran and Tokyo. Through these 13 case studies, the book elaborates “…on the balance of power between the various directors and the political games they play in their attempts to appropriate and mould urban space” (page 3). The authors attempt to answer the following questions: Who are the directors of urban change? What are their ideas on urban development and are these ideas compatible with those of other urban actors, as well as with local concepts of urbanization and the conditions of the built environment? From what sources do the directors derive their ideas? And in what way and to what extent do they succeed in realizing them? In addition, some of the chapters answer the following questions: How are these directors linked through networks? Why are some directors more successful in conveying their views than others? What are the sources used to accomplish their ideas: political power, managerial skills, financial powers, artistic insights or scientific knowledge?
To make a generalized comparison of the different themes in the diverse case study cities, the editor uses the ultra-case approach, choosing one extreme case as a starting point and then moving through a continuum to the most opposite or divergent instance. Tehran represents a type of city where the concerns of everyday life have been too overwhelming to allow a special vision to be developed and implemented (“a lack of vision”). This stands in sharp contrast to Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Surabaya and Colombo – all of which represent the second type of city with “strong directors,” mostly their countries’ prime ministers or presidents. But there are also times when the urban development authorities, construction firms and ordinary people’s collective opposition have also acted as “collective” directors for urban change in cities. Guangzhou, Nanjing and Hanoi represent this third type (the socialist city), where the collective bodies (the party and its bodies and councils) regularly broadcast catchphrases that have a very significant function in urban development. There are still powerful individuals keeping out of sight behind this rhetoric. Tokyo is an example of the fourth ultra-case (directors as agents of urban change), where it has been the architects and the city officials, especially the mayors, who have functioned as the agents who borrowed ideas for the reconstructions from the West after such catastrophes as fires or devastating earthquakes. Finally, Semarang in Indonesia is an example of a city type where the director is not someone with formal political power (“lower-level directors”). The directors in this case are intellectual or conceptual types.
The editor notes that this book is just a starting point, and an incentive for further research on this theme. The contributions that follow in the form of city case studies in the later chapters come from cultural anthropologists, sociologists, geographers, architects and economists with interests in Asian urban development issues.