Abstract
Asia is undergoing an urban transformational process whose complexity and variability in scale, form, pace, and intensity across diverse landscapes pose formidable challenges. Collectively, the empirical studies presented in this volume offer insights into diverse aspects of this complex process, but individually, they can be described as single-focus snapshots, fixed in space and time. In this introductory chapter to the volume, I introduce a space–time perspective to the perusal of these studies, drawing attention to some space–time effects, as well as to signs of changing conceptual paradigms, including the search for common ground and integrative approaches. Both shifting paradigms and spatiotemporal variations have important implications for Asian urban developmental planning, including, but going beyond, livability, sustainability, and land and infrastructural considerations. I offer some perspectives on the interrelated discourses that arise in the context of land and infrastructural agenda-setting, in recognition of a nexus between these and other conversations taking place in recent years. A brief overview of the collection of papers, in terms of study areas and placement in the volume, followed by a few words on overall organizational structure, concludes the chapter.
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Notes
- 1.
The descriptors such as scholars, educators, academics, planners, and practitioners as used in this chapter, are inclusive and interchangeable. At the same time, they may also connote the nuanced difference(s) between the theoretical/academic and the planning/practicing focus or orientation that is often encountered in the literature and in reality.
- 2.
In this chapter, the term ‘paradigm’ is used, to borrow the words from Herbert and Thomas (1982), “…in its more general form as comprising a body of ideas or a broad model which may be used to guide the development of theory and explanatory research; …” (26).
- 3.
For a fascinating glimpse into the physical, economic, social, and informational dynamics of the transformation of Asian cities over four decades (around 1970–2005) see Yeung (2011).
- 4.
Lin (1994; as cited in Marcotullio 2004, 38), for example, noted five categories that contrasted Asian urbanization from that of the West: “(1) the role of cities in regional development; (2) the dualistic nature of urban employment; (3) trans-national capital and urbanization; (4) socialism and urbanization, and (5) extended metropolitan regions.”.
- 5.
- 6.
For an overview of these arguments and counterarguments, see, for example, Storper and Scott (2016), Scott and Storper (2015), Roy (2009); as well as the essays in the ‘Debates and Developments’ section in the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Volume 40, Issue 1 (especially, Robinson and Roy 2016; Roy 2016; Walker 2016).
- 7.
Interestingly, it appears that even Allen J. Scott and Michael Storper have disagreed (e.g., 2015, 2016) with the idea of an eventual convergence of cities, the world over to the extent envisioned by Dick and Rimmer (1998). Their conception of the ‘urban land nexus’ [which, as they put it, is ‘a related feature’ of agglomeration, corresponding ‘to the essential fabric of intra-urban space’ (Scott and Storper 2015, 8)] has five variables [namely economic development, resource allocation, social stratification, cultural norms and traditions, and political authority and power] that would “shape the principal variations of the urban land nexus at different times and places,” (Storper and Scott 2016, 1116; emphases added).
- 8.
The EKC hypothesis envisioned a similar path of development for all countries (and cities) of the world and suggested an inverted U-shaped relationship between national income and environmental problems, so that with income rising, environmental problems would first get worse, then get better.
- 9.
Re. ‘anecdotal evidence’: In offering empirical support to his notions of compressed and telescoped development, Marcotullio readily acknowledged the data constraints. Noting that ‘adequately testing’ the claims made by his notion of space–time telescoping on rapidly developing Asian countries and cities would require ‘an enormous amount of standardized data across time and for individual cities’ that were unavailable at the time, Marcotullio (2005, 118) presented his observations as ‘anecdotal evidence.’.
- 10.
Thinking, for example, in terms of the Earth’s ozone layer depletion, climate change effects on the atmosphere, etc.
- 11.
It is worth remembering that the conceptualization of what constitutes livability or sustainability as implicit in the presented studies has been based on the subjective, and likely contextual, interpretations of the individual or teams of researchers from different countries with different disciplinary/professional backgrounds.
- 12.
As an inevitable corollary of this evolving discourse, conceptual dichotomies (e.g., sustainability vs. sustainable development, weak vs. strong sustainability based on whether natural capital is substitutable for man-made and other capitals, conservation vs. preservation; growth vs. development vs. steady-state vs. minus growth; green vs. brown vs. gray, and such) have dominated the literature, adding to the challenges faced by planners and policymakers in coming to an agreement on operationalizing the principles of sustainability.
- 13.
Mensah (2019) cited three sources in support of the quote, which are not reproduced here.
- 14.
In the context of the USA, Gough (2015) traced the focus of these shifts from the 1960s (civil rights movement), through the early 1970s (protecting the natural environment), the late 1970s to the early 1980s (environmental justice and sustainable development), the 1990s (Smart Growth, New Urbanism, and livable community), to the first decade of the 2000s (community health and food systems), and noted that “Paralleling the examples above, definitions of livability have changed over time and geographically with the associated human values” (2015, 149).
- 15.
See, for example, the Space and the City issue of The Economist, April 4th–10th, 2015.
- 16.
From this perspective, it is also interesting to note that only one of the four hypothesized land teleconnections offered by Seto et al. (2012) appears close to a common concept of land change in peri-urban areas when “urbanization processes in a single place (e.g., increase in urban population) leads to land change in one or more urban or peri-urban regions (e.g., land conversion for residential development)” (Seto et al. 2012, 7689). In the other three scenarios, decisions or demands made in one or more urban places can affect land changes in distal places.
- 17.
Per the authors, “[a]n important consideration in this respect is that teleconnections can extend from short-distances such as the continuum between a central urban area and peri-urban areas to longer distances such as those between places across nations or continents” (Güneralp et al. 2013, 445).
- 18.
For an insightful recent contribution on the interconnections of urban infrastructure with the environment, health, livability, well-being, and equity under the umbrella of “multi-objective sustainability planning in cities,” see, Ramaswami (2020).
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Mookherjee, D. (2023). Asian Urban Transformation: The Shifting Paradigms. In: Mookherjee, D., Pomeroy, G.M., Huong, L.T.T. (eds) Urban Transformational Landscapes in the City-Hinterlands of Asia. Advances in 21st Century Human Settlements. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-8726-7_1
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