Abstract
Plainly, the city is the centre of change, the element essential to progress, the prime mover in development, and deleterious, even distressing, concomitant effects are secondary though awfully immediate1. Clearly, the growth of the urban population of the world has accelerated remarkably in recent decades, and is now proceeding at an unprecedented rate. The so-called developing countries, among them most Asian countries, are claiming a rapidly increasing share in this urban population while retaining large rural majorities. Certainly, the enormous growth in the populations of the great cities of Asia owes much to a considerable, if not overwhelming, influx of migrants from the rural areas and, as certainly, there is a considerable feedback from these centres to the countryside. Obviously, then, the Asian city—as any city—must be regarded as an integral part of the scheme of national development: in planning, an urban-rural dichotomy is unrealistic.
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I would hesitate to consider the degraded human environment characteristic of large portions of the city as necessary or inevitable, and I do not minimise the immediate plight of large numbers of the inhabitants of some of the great cities of the world and particularly of Asia; indeed, it has been remarked that perhaps the only difference between the situation of large portions of the population of some large cities and that of the victims of a natural disaster is that no campaigns are mounted to come to the rescue of the former.
The First National Economic Development Plan (1961–66) has been followed by the Second National Economic and Social Development Plan (1967–71).
The Population Census of 1970 will consider as ‘urban’ residents of municipalities and of sukhaphiban (sanitary districts) with at least 10 000 inhabitants. This is too generous a definition since sukhaphiban are overwhelmingly rural and, in fact, many municipalities include a large number of agriculturalists. Here, only those resident in the 120 municipalities are considered ‘urban’.
See Larry Sternstein (1966). Contemplating a Hierarchy of Centres in Thailand. Pacific Viewpoint, Vol. 7, pp. 229–35; The distribution of Thai centres at mid-nineteenth century. J. Southeast Asian History, 7 (1966), 66–72; An historical atlas of Thailand. J. Siam Society, 52 (1964), 1–20.
A Greater Bangkok Metropolitan Area administration is being considered. The choice has narrowed to two schemes: in one (favoured by academicians), three elected representatives from each of several Metropolitan districts would elect a Lord Mayor who would work with an appointed Governor; in the other (favoured by government officials), three elected representatives from each of several Metropolitan districts would elect a Lord Mayor who would work with a Metropolitan Board including representatives from the various ministries and an appointed Governor. The area to be included is not yet finalised but would include the trans-river municipalities of Bangkok and Thon Buri as well as Nonthaburi to the north and Samut Prakan to the south.
A City and Town Planning Act was passed in 1952, but a Royal Decree is necessary to activate it in any particular place. In reality, the Act is concerned with construction and reconstruction rather than with planning and places a heavy financial burden on the particular municipality concerned. The Act has not been applied in Bangkok and only in a very few instances up-country.
Note must also be taken, however, of the number of the ‘developing’ countries which have laws but do not use them. See, for example, A. A. Solow. Tools and Techniques for Implementation of Urban Planning. Urbanization in Developing Countries, International Union of Local Authorities, The Hague (1968), p. 117.
See Larry Sternstein. Municipality of Bangkok: a Critique of Population Data and a Proposed Reorientation of the Registration & Statistics Division. Greater Bangkok Metropolitan Area Population Studies, Number 1, Municipality of Bangkok, December 1968.
Mom Chao Athiphon Phong Kasem Si, former Director of the National Statistical Office, provides a brief, informative history in The Chronicle of Statistics in Thailand to my Knowledge and Memory, in National Statistical Office, Office of the Prime Minister, published on the occasion of the inaugural ceremony of the National Statistical Office, September 1956, pp. 11–31 (in Thai).
This is an unfortunate consequence of what may be termed ‘mimic-planning’ —planning based squarely on happenings elsewhere and inevitably lagging behind current thinking. New York and London, renowned for the efficiency of their mass-transit systems, now acknowledge the need to turn the ‘single purpose, eight hours a day, five days a week, commercial centre to a full-time, well-balanced commercial, residential and sight-seeing area where people live, work and play…’, and in each of these cities huge developments are now underway. In New York, for example, the Battery Park City Corporation Authority, created in 1968, is to develop Battery Park City on 104 acres (42 hectares) in lower Manhattan as a waterfront residential and commercial community at a cost of some 1–1 billion dollars. See ‘Battery Park City to cost $1–1 billion’, Metropolitan Area Digest, 11 (November–December 1968), The Graduate School of Public Affairs, State University of New York, p. 6.
See National Statistical Office, Preliminary Report of the Labour Force Survey: Bangkok-Thon Buri Municipal Areas 1966–7, Bangkok, 1968. The first Report of the Labour Force Survey; Bangkok-Thon Buri Municipal Areas 1965–6, National Statistical Office, Office of the Prime Minister, Bangkok 1967, indicated also that somewhat more than 15 per cent of all employed were employed by government.
This is not to imply, of course, that extension of government offices alone is bringing this change; a substantial portion of the area between the Ong Ang Canal and the Chao Phraya River has been occupied by or reserved for government and religious use since the very founding of the capital.
The Greater Bangkok Plan 2533 (A.D. 1990) is the final report on the Bangkok-Thon Buri City Planning Project undertaken jointly by the Thai Government, represented by the Ministry of Interior, and the International Co-operation Administration, represented by the United States Operations Mission to Thailand. Litchfield, Whiting, Bowne & Associates, Architects and Engineers, of New York City and Adams, Howard and Greeley of Cambridge, Massachusetts, were consultants. The contract was entered upon in December 1957 and, following some expansion in scope, terminated in August 1960.
See Sternstein (1968), op. cit. The Population Census of 1960, the first by the Central (now National) Statistical Office, is the most informative yet taken, many characteristics of the population becoming known for the first time. None of the data elicited were used in preparing The Greater Bangkok Plan 2533. Apparently, advance returns for the Metropolitan Area were not requested or could not be supplied in time since the contract between the Thai Government and its consultants terminated in August 1960.
Indeed, the consultants thought of the future land-use pattern presented as the Plan. See The Greater Bangkok Plan 2533, Litchfield, Whiting, Bowne and Associates and Adams, Howard and Greeley, Bangkok, August 2503 (1960), pp. 68–70.
Further, under the ‘new’ planning philosophy a ‘Plan’ is not prepared. See, for example, A. Waterson et al., Development Planning, Lessons in Experience, Baltimore (1965).
J. Friedmann, Planning as Innovation: the Chilean Case. J. Am. Inst. Planners, 32 (1966), 194–204; and Calcutta Metropolitan Planning Organisation, Basic Development Plan, Calcutta Metropolitan District, 1966–1986, Calcutta (1966).
Department of Town and Country Planning. Report on the First Revision of the Plan for the Metropolitan Area, Bangkok (1971) (in Thai).
See Larry Sternstein. Greater Bangkok Metropolitan Area: Population Growth and Movement 1956–1960 and Research for Planning, the Traffic Problem. Greater Bangkok Metropolitan Area Population Studies; Number 2, Office of the Municipal Adviser, Municipality of Bangkok (1969).
A. Chancharoensook. Memorandum Describing Activities Under the Responsibility for Planning and Proffering Advice Concerning the Future of Bangkok or The Greater Bangkok Plan 2543, Bangkok (1969) (in Thai).
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© 1974 Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Sternstein, L. (1974). Planning the Development of Bangkok. In: Dwyer, D.J. (eds) The City in the Third World. The Geographical Readings series. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-86177-4_15
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-86177-4_15
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