URBAN CHANGE FROM THE INDIVIDUAL STANDPOINT: AN ASIAN PERSPECTIVE

By Hoang Huu Phe, DPU, UCL University of London

1. Introduction The recent growth of urban areas in the Asia Pacific region has posed serious questions to almost all existing theories of urban development (Lin, 1994). The world has never before witnessed such a massive redistribution of the population and concentration of material flows, driven by enormous scales of human intentions and fed by almost unlimited resources of human labour and materials within a short span of historical time (Hall, 1997). In the words of Sudjic (1995), the scale of this extraordinary process of urbanization can be compared to the establishing of an equivalent of a middle size European city every week. The fact that this unusual surge of urbanization coincides with other major, and sometimes unexpected, world events at the turn of the 20th century, such as the demise of East West confrontation and the advent of the phenomenal expansion of the WWW, fuels far reaching speculations and interpretations of the causal relationships between the forces and processes and their outcomes that will shape the lifestyle of the future generations in Asia's urban areas. At a time when the appeal of futurology in urban matters is at least in doubt if not in terminal decline, any attempt to firmly predict what people will do in their daily routine in twenty years from now would seem to be somewhat ambitious. Population size of the mega cities in the Third World, a fashionable subject for forecasting, has been revised downward repeatedly (Clark,1996:168). Nevertheless, a measure of certainty in diagnosing the likely broad sketches of the future living in cities can be achieved by deducting what is possible from a few predictable trends in different related fields. To date, there is a series of theories, each of which tries, albeit partially, to explain the phenomenon of urban development in the Asia Pacific region. Brought together, they may offer some clues related to the logic of changes, and, hopefully, the direction of the changes as well. The issues of life style cannot conceivably be analyzed outside those changes. 2. The Pacific Asia urbanisation 2.1 Theoretical perspectives The unprecedented pace of urban development in Southeast Asia seems to require a framework of analysis that may have sometimes to go beyond conventional explanations concerning demographic, economic and social aspects of urbanisation. Lin (1994) identified several themes that emerged from a large body of literature on the empirical characteristics of this process.

1

The first theme is dealing with the role of cities in regional economic growth. Within this theme, cities are seen as "growth centres" through which benefits would trickle down to slow-going areas and also as focuses for innovations, technological and societal changes. Within this analytical framework, the city in developing world differs from its counterpart in developed world only by the degrees of economic and managerial efficiency. The second theme concerns the dualism of the city economy with the intricate interaction between the formal and informal sectors of the city economy. This theme touches perhaps the most important feature of life in the Southeast Asian city, where the rate of population increase is far outstripping the rate of job creation, which leads to the proliferation of cheap services and large concentration of residents, especially the low income groups, in the central city areas. The third theme is about the impact of the trans-national capital in the urbanization process. The newly formed 'footloose' capital is said to move quickly to where the profit margins are highest. Global pension funds contain about £7,000 billions, while global mutual funds assets are well over£5,000 (Tran, 1997). It is estimated that about £1,000 billion is invested into South East Asia (Guardian, 2 Sept 1997), and the impact of this enormous capital on urbanization cannot be overestimated. Within this theme, explanations are offered for a new form of urban development in the shape of the so called "mega cities", which are shown to be separated from the "world cities", despite similar range of population size. The fourth, perhaps a somewhat controversial theme, is dealing with urbanisation under socialism, with the cases of China and Vietnam (of course before their respective reforms in 1979 and 1986) defying common wisdom about the relationship between industrialisation and urbanisation. The main contention of the theme is between a conventional view that the socialist regimes' bias against urbanisation is the reason for slow urbanisation (Thrift& Forbes, 1987), and another view which explained this slowed pace as a result of conscious efforts to promote industrialisation (Kirkby, 1985). The last theoretical theme, developed quite recently, is the concept of desakota, suggested by McGee (1991). The term is a composite word combining the words for village (desa) and for town (cota) in Bahasa Indonesian. This type of region is neither rural nor urban, and is characterised by an intensive mixture of agriculture and non-agricultural activities occurring side by side. Later it will become clear that each of the theoretical perspectives on Pacific Asia urbanisation mentioned above, while highlighting important characteristics of urbanisation process in Pacific Asian region, can only offer an incomplete picture of the context in which the changes in urban life can be analyzed. 2.2 Adaptable cities and intentional cities In some of the theoretical perspectives mentioned above, the process of urbanisation in Asia is seen as largely inseparable from the surrounding countryside.

2

The main contentions refer largely to the inter-dependency between the urban core and the periphery (Gilbert, 1993). Historically, it is understandable, as most of the theories were born before the era of the transnational capital, which make the degree of integration into the world's economy a main feature of almost any city. Thus, implicitly, the discussions are concentrated on the existing urban centres and the ways they develop, rather than the reasons for their formation as new cities, or urban entities in the first place. Furthermore, also implicitly, in these theoretical themes it is recognized that the urban lifestyle is essentially an important part and a result of the diffusion of Western urban models. Thus, the prediction of the future urban lifestyle would amount to an account of different ways of assimilation of a largely Western concept of urban living with different time gaps. In reality, however, many urban centres in Pacific Asia, especially in Southern China, are in fact newly established types of settlements with explicit purposes of accommodating export oriented industries. Being the manifestations of very clearly defined intentions, these entities have very special type of structure as well as unique linkages to the hinterlands which fail to conform to the existing theories, which were developed for cities as economic centres that grow gradually. While McGee (1971) may be right in saying that cities, instead of being focal points of diffusion, are just symptoms of the changes at a societal level, the fact that residents in some newly established special economic zones (SEZ) are living under an almost completely different legal system, accompanied with a different code of conduct, can be seen as creating an intentional separation from the rest the urban areas in terms of different principles of urban organisations. 2.3 Economic engines and "command and control" centres The main attention of the themes is seen to be focused on the cities as economic entities rather than a form of human settlement, which is sometimes strongly influenced by physical features such as topology, climate and natural accessibility (by land, river, sea, etc.). Almost totally absent are the historical and political cultural dimensions of urbanisation that play a major role in charting distinctive routes for each of the cities to follow. The preoccupation with the economic functions of the cities implies that most likely the culturally indifferent, economic indicators will be used to evaluate and compare them. It is quite often to see how different levels of material consumption (electricity, clean water, number of computers, etc.) are quoted to rank cities or regions. However, it can be argued that given the same level of material consumption, the patterns of consumption can be very diverse, depending on the cultural traditions. As it often happens, the patterns of consumption, dictated by cultural habits, are more important to life style than the quantitative measurements of consumption. Such indicators of life style as percentage of population living in tower blocks or owning a car can be totally misleading because of different aesthetic, functional or environmental interpretations and attitudes attached to them. 3. A new conceptualisation of urbanisation in Pacific Asia. Of all the theoretical themes analyzed in the previous part, the one that deals with the relationship between socialism and urbanisation may seem rather obscure. Nevertheless, the theoretical implications of this complex relationship can be quite far reaching. If the other themes largely

3

conform to a mainly demographic line of argument which takes for its basis the known relationship between industrialisation and urbanisation, the theoretical theme in question raises a serious controversy. Although the pace of industrialisation is quite high in China and Vietnam, both countries seem to have been able to keep the level of urbanisation rather low. Despite the enormous scales of urban development, the relative rate of it appears to be quite modest compared with the rate of growth of the economy. In the Pearl River Delta of China before 1978, the growth rate of the urban population was only .075% during the period 1957 – 1978, although this figure was increase sharply to 5% after 1978. This rate, however, is quite modest if compared with the average rate of 15% for the GDP growth in the same period. In Vietnam, even after the liberalisation of the economy, the in migration from the countryside to Hanoi City is estimated as 20,000 per year during 1993 -1996 period, a mere 2% of the inner city population, while the average growth rate of the city economy during this period is far above 15% (23% for industrial production) (Vietnam Economic Times, 1997). The explanations offered for this anomaly are the socialist bias against urban development, the influence of socialist planning, the considerations related to defense, ethnic relations, etc., while fitting well with many aspects of reality, are in fact the manifestations of more fundamental factors. 3.1 The intentional character of Pacific Asia urbanisation. The multi-facet character of urbanisation in developing countries, especially in Pacific Asia, are often thought to develop out of the internal logic created by the forces of the market, among which the trans-national capital plays an overwhelming role. While it is true for many cities in the Pacific Asia, especially those which have been integrated into the global economy (either as the result of historical link with the colonial powers (Hong Kong, Singapore) or as the consequence of the division created during the Cold War years (Tokyo, Bangkok, Manila, Jakarta), the same cannot be said for the process of urban development in the countries, which are still largely outside the global economic network, such as China, North Korea and Vietnam. Despite geographical closeness and similarity in appearance, the difference in the pattern of urbanisation between the two respective groups of countries may go back to the historical traditions of urban settlement in the Pacific Asia region. Unlike the uniformity of many European cities, which shared their roots in the antiquity and experienced largely similar conditions after the two World Wars, the cities in East and South East Asia were derived from two basic types. Wheatley (1974) called them the Nagaras and the Commanderies. The first are the sacred cities, established for the purpose of worshipping and as the residence of the kings and queens. The second type are the cities with the predominant function of administration. The commercial parts of the cities, though sometimes substantial to the extent that they could outgrow the original city cores in both types, were of the secondary importance as the founding factor. Culturally, while the Nagaras were present in all the Indianised countries, nearly all the Commanderies were located within the Sinicised regions and territories. The structure of the sacred city had always follow almost only the religious prescriptions while the structure of the administrative cities was subject to cosmological prescriptions, geomancy requirements and regulations of the Courts (Sit, 1995). The colonial period did transform cities of this region into the common dual system urban entities. Functionally, they were transformed from the mercantilist to colonial cities. Physically,

4

this cities were comprised of a planned, European part and the indigenous cities. In this sense, nearly all the cities in the region were more or less uniform, at least they are more similar to each other than to other settlements in their respective countries (Clark, 1996). During the post independence period, starting around the early 1950s and coinciding with the beginning of the Cold War, however, there appeared two distinctive paths of urban development in the region. The first consisted of the cities whose economy was part of the global capitalist market (Hong Kong, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Manila) and the second included socialist cities, which were supposed, with a rather frankly declared purpose of industrialisation, to be transformed from "parasitic, consumer cities" into productive cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Hanoi, Hochiminh City). While the ancient sacred cities (Nagaras) have lost their importance, replaced or being imposed upon by the cities of commerce and service which are in essence the sites for capital accumulation for both the foreign businesses and the local economy, the intentional character (Commanderies) of the Sinisised urban tradition seemed to be continued, perhaps less consciously and more by coincidence, by the principles of socialist town planning, which strongly stress "command and control" functions, beside the familiar industrialisation function. Whatever similarities the outward appearances may show, these two types of the cities were fundamentally different and remain so even today, and may even continue to differ in the future. Although the classification sounds very much ideological, in reality the most important difference is of cultural character and may have originated long before any ideological divide had taken place in the region at the time around the end of World War II (perhaps it should be noted here that the cultural character mentioned is not given the overwhelming causal power as the one advocated by Samuel Huntington in his apocalyptic vision of the "clash of civilisations". The effect of the culture is concerned only with the form of urban organisation). It is the difference between almost two opposites: a flexible, adaptability - oriented approach based on the principle of competition, and a strong, intentional approach toward urban development. The contrast could not be more pronounced. While the pace of urban development in China, Vietnam and Singapore was strictly monitored, and if the actual outcomes often fall short of the ambitious goals, they never seriously violated the pre-defined planning framework. At the same time, it is well known that the Master Plan of Bangkok has been dragging for the last 35 years or so without ever achieving its final stage. The end of the Cold War, in a curious way, had a homogenising influence on both approaches to urban development: The State in China and Vietnam step by step distanced itself from the rigid dogmas of socialist town planning, while city authorities in other new Asian economic powers have become more assertive in getting their increasingly ambitious national goals fulfilled. In fact, there is even an interesting role swapping between the former opposites: some of the urban areas in China and Vietnam may have all the signs of the sprawled cities getting out of hand, while some of the most recent prestige urban projects in the so called Asian Tigers are quite reminiscent of the mega projects during the socialist utopia in Russia of the 1920s (the linear city, the IT corridor in Malaysia, the Southern Sea Port south of Bangkok, the fully computerised container terminal in Singapore, etc.). Except for being in different historical times, they share almost everything: the boldness of ideas, the social radicalism, the strong reliance on technological progress and most of all, the optimism

5

bordering voluntarism. It is obvious that the homogenisation process or the convergence process of these approaches to urban development could not happen without the vast amount of footloose capital going around the world in search of the highest profit rate. As neither Europe and USA, nor Africa or Latin America could deliver that rate, so Pacific Asia is the choice destination (Guardian,1997), despite all the fluctuations. Thus, due to the recent changes in economic policies of the countries in the region, with substantial modifications of the rigid positions within both approaches to urbanisation, through the economic power accumulated after what Mahathir of Malaysia called "40 years of hard work", coupled with the quintessential presence of enormous footloose capital, the polarisation of the opposites between cities in Pacific Asia has been transformed into certain sort of continuum, ranging from the more intentional development (Beijing, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur) to a adaptable one (Hong Kong, Bangkok, Jakarta, Manila). 3.2 Berry's "spectrum of urbanization experiences" revisited Conceptually, this understanding of the variety of characteristics possessed by cities in the region is very close to the "spectrum of urbanization experiences" suggested by Berry (1973), which originated from the socio - political bases ranging from "Free Enterprise Dynamics" to " Socialist Directions". Despite close similarities in the vocabulary, there are conceptual differences between his "spectrum of experiences " and the continuum of intention of today. In the early 1970s and at the height of the Cold War, Berry was anticipating more of divergence, that is, the widening of the spectrum, reflecting the irreconcilable ideological positions. His time was the time of commitment and confidence, when so much expectation and resources were invested in the ability of planning to intervene deliberately to "increase rather than decrease the range of social choice" (Berry, 1993). A quarter of a century later, the end of the Cold War and the advent of the global, footloose transnational capital has reduced considerably the scope of variations and increased sharply the competition between cities, members of an increasingly less diverse group. An analysis of this continuum may shed light not only on the way a more or less common urbanisation process in Pacific Asia has emerged, but also helps in identifying directions of possible changes in future urban life. Nevertheless, although Berry's concept was proposed long time ago, it can be argued that, as the economies of China, Vietnam, North Korea, Laos, etc. are still not fully integrated into the world's capitalist system, some of his points may still be valid for the Pacific Asia, perhaps as much as the current world city paradigm (Hall, 1966; Friedmann, 1986, Sassen, 1991). If the premise that cities in general are located on this continuum is accepted, several points can be made: The opposite sides of the continuum represent, on the one end, cities whose main function is to act as an economic engine, based on the flexible, laissez faire responses to the market, and on the other, cities charged with intentional, predefined tasks (functions) of nation building, such as geopolitical, redistributive and, of course, economic. Within one country the characteristic pair cases of Beijing - Shanghai or Hanoi - Hochiminh City can be considered as good examples for two opposite ends of a continuum. In other parts of the world, there are very good examples of

6

intentional separation of functions within the same countries, such as Canberra - Sidney, Brasilia - Rio de Janeiro, Amsterdam - La Hague. In this continuum, the world cities (London, New York, Tokyo) are all belonging to the middle positions. The economic engine function is obvious: except London which specialises in financial services, New York and Tokyo have powerful production bases. They cannot afford to be inflexible as, among other things, doing so would jeopardize the attraction for MNC in putting their headquarters there, the fact that elevated them into their present rank in the first place. The nation building functions, however the primate cities, may include some of the nation building functions, but they normally do so in a subtle ways. This type of ordering has important implications for analyzing the directions for future changes in function, structure and size of the urban centres. The resulted function, structure and size will in turn take part in defining the life of individuals inhabiting these cities. The persistent position in the middle of the world cities and the future candidates in the continuum make it clear that the sheer size is not a criterion to become such a city. Rather than that, the world cities are always characterised by a very strong political will to make it happen. This bring us to the on-going debate about the rivalry between those who control the transnational capital (TNC), and the nation state government, in the conditions of Pacific Asia. In the case of China, for instance, it is unlikely that Beijing will ever transfer or even delegate major decision making powers to the economically powerful South East provinces, now including Hong Kong as its apex. It, however, seems to be ready to let Hong Kong become one of the world's largest exchange and trading centres (Hai Wai wenzai, 1997). Without the modern communication in management and banking, to do so would mean risking a practical surrender of the only real power, that is, economic power. The new real time communications allows the central bureaucrats to enjoy uninterrupted chains of command without parting with status and privileges accorded to the grand capital city. Ironically, the bigger Hong Kong grows under Beijing rule, the less likely it will ever become a truly world city. In the case of Singapore, chances are more because the similar dilemma never appears, although the proximity to Hong Kong may make it difficult to compete. In contrast, almost any city can be made into a mega city, given a right combination of conditions that can bring acceptably high rate of profit. For instance, Bangkok, whose location was chosen 200 years ago because the swampy area could shelter the Thai Courts from the then powerful Burmese army, quickly becomes an ideal site of for capital accumulation, due to the abundance of cheap labour. Later, Manila, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, and recently, Guangzhow, Shenzen, and soon Hochiminh City and perhaps Rangoon will follow the suit. The presence of the trans national capital is the main force behind this wave of urban development, although it was obviously not the trigger: for the capitalist Asian states, the development process was part of the integration into the (Western) world economic system which, in turn, was a result of the realisation of their developmental goals, and perhaps more important, of the geopolitical goals of the local leadership. Likewise, the phenomenal

7

development in Southern China was a result of the confluence of powerful factors: the strong political will of the Chinese leadership to (a) absorb Hong Kong (and Taiwan) smoothly and (b) open up the economy, and the pressure of the potentially unprecedented rate of return for the trans national capital. The main difference between China and other countries in the region is obvious: though the presence of the footloose TNC, by definition, is equally volatile everywhere, in other Asian countries the integration motivation are believed to be more long term, while in China it maybe just politically (and even economically) expedient. Indeed, some even question the real importance of TNC, as there is evidence pointing to a larger share of local investment in physical development as compared with that of FDI (Hall, 1997), although this anomaly might be only a tactic of Hong Kong or Taiwanese investors using small front firms to avoid high taxes, as usually the case in the region, even in the newcomer Vietnam (The Asian World Street Journal, 4/1997). The physical expansion of the export oriented, largely Fordist production of low cost consumer goods (Siu,1990) will have to be replaced by high tech industry, which would require more of the social infrastructure, such as education, recreation and leisure, instead of miles and miles of conveyors and warehouses of the conventional, 70s technologies as for today. Thus there will be limits for the physical expansion, especially if the increase in labour cost in these areas of China outweighs the cost of relocation to the countries of still cheaper labour. For certain goods such as garments and low cost appliances, there are signs of market glut, resulting in heavy dumping of goods in neighbouring countries. The emerging picture of Pacific Asia rapid urbanisation thus seems to be much more complicated than any of the above theoretical themes is supposed to represent. On one hand, the powerful political will to accept different degrees of integration into the world's economic system for the sake of nation building goals, on the other, the enormous capital waiting to be multiplied. Although not all the capital is invested on urban physical development, a substantial share of it (ranging from 8% in Malaysia to 18% in Thailand, see AWJ August 1997) have shot up the real property market, causing an unprecedented surge of speculative development which were later to become the main reason of the recent stock market crisis that likely to end the first circle of an extraordinary period of development since the middle of 1980s. This picture, however sketchy, can serve as the basis for a conceptualisation of urbanisation process and the main characters of the Pacific Asia city. This must be the first step toward predicting the future trends for any particular city in the region. 3.3 The future of the urban continuum in Pacific Asia Every major city in the region is occupying a particular location in the flexible intentional continuum. Assuming that the relatively stable political climate in the region, especially in China, will remain the same, it would be expected that, although the degrees of intention in the urban development process may vary, the position of the main urban centres in the described continuum will be more or less stable. There may be addition of new urban centres, first, as more countries (Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia)

8

are joining the development club of ASEAN, and second, there is evidence that even the medium cities can compete for their share of TNC (Tran, 1997) and, therefore, a share in the total volume of urban development. However they would not be able to unsettle the existing order. In essence, the stability of this continuum is a result a compromise, or perhaps an equilibrium, between the degree of integration into the world economic system and the degree of intensity of the nation states' intention to make urban centres serve their specific nation building goals. 3.4 The urban development cycles in Pacific Asia One of the elements that can upset the stability of the continuum is the cyclical character of urban development, which will likely to affect economic centres much more forcefully than the administrative control centres. There are two types of cycles. The first is the business cycles of the world economy. Through the sensitivity of TNC, the flow of FDI will vary. In extreme cases, the relative weakening of the economic fundamentals may lead to panic selling and capital flight. The second cycle is defined by the speed of restructuring. The low cost, labour intensive production will have to be replaced by high tech, flexible industries and knowledge based services to maintain the rate of return. Within the longer global cycles (wave), if a city can respond quickly and efficiently. The timing and length of both types of cycles may be influenced strongly by planned or unplanned technological innovations (information processing and networking, transport on the basis of super conducting materials, new ecological products and processes, etc.). 3.5 The new urban form and new urbanism in Pacific Asia. If the two previous aspects deal with spatial order and temporal rhythms of urban development process as dimensions of its outward interactions, the last aspect concerns with the inward structure of the urban entities, which is of course a result of their interaction. Apart from being forced to adapt to changing exogenous forces, the future urban form in Pacific Asia is increasingly being shaped by the cultural values of the inhabitants, which are of course, strongly influenced by the exogenous forces too. A model developed for describing and explaining the way residential structure of Asian cities is formed over time can be suggested, in which strong emphasis is given to the role of social status as the defining factor of residential location decisions (see Appendix A, to be sent later)............................................... According to this model, the residential decisions in the region are like to be influenced by the following factors: (a) In the households' decision making process relating to residential location in Asian cities,

there is an enormous role attached to social status of the residential location, especially in societies with a heavy hierarchical structure.

(b) The physical distance becomes less and less important with the dispersal of employment centres and the increased personal mobility.

(c) The demand for living space is known to be adjustable within very wide margins (Rapoport, 1977), and in many instances, especially in the more traditional societies as in Asia, it can be sacrificed for other needs, such as a preference for extended family, or family consensus.

9

(d) The historically and culturally conditioned perception of the significance of place. The belief that a place has more than observed physical properties is widely recognised and dated back to very early, one may say prehistoric, practices of finding appropriate locations for settlement (e.g. feng shui). In these conditions, the dynamic of the residential areas in Pacific Asia's cities can be conceptualised as consisting of simultaneous movements along two dimensions: the social status of residential location and the dwelling quality. The attraction of the multiple social status nuclei within the city boundaries will form over time different isolines representing different zones inhabited by distinctive social groups. The elite groups will be at the centres of the corresponding status nuclei (businessmen, artists, intellectuals, etc), and in a parallel with their central position in spatial terms, they exercise leading roles in forming tastes, preferences and other elements of the future urban life style. In this way, the region's urbanism, understood as a set of life styles which was borne out from the convergence process, is both the result of the new urban form and also a setting for its further development, and is likely to reflect many contrasts coming from the different positions in the continuum. At a more immediate level, the new urbanism in Pacific Asia is formed largely by the new elites, who are the leaders of opinions, tastes and life styles (See Appendix A).

3.6 Implications for the future urban life of the individual It is useful to follow the above sequence of urban dimensions for the sake of a coherent analysis of their implications on the life of the individual. (a) It is easy to see that the position of a city on the above continuum defines it character. The more "intentional" a city is, the more life style of its inhabitant differs from the common, or universal norm, or special. The less intentional cities are, therefore, more cosmopolitan. For an average observer, Beijing, as an "intentional" city, is expected to offer more surprises than, say, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur or Taipei. Within a country, if one compares life style of inhabitants of a major rban centre with that of a provincial town, there will be differences and similarities. Whether the differences will outweighs the similarities, or the reverse, it also depends on the position of the city in the continuum. Thus, the most "intentional", or "deliberate" cities will have more coherent or, in other words, narrower range of diversity. For example, Bangkok, a less intentional city, shares many features with Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Jakarta. The differences between it and say, a North East town in terms of income, access to services and cultural life, are striking. At the same time Beijing, apart from being more special, is also more similar to a township in the middle of China. The cities closer to the "intentional" end of the continuum may lead in indicators related to the traditional "nation building goals", such as low pollution, more generous spatial standards, better health care, etc., institutions of high culture (theatres, concert halls, etc.) while the city located nearer to the laissez fair end may lead in indicators related to commercial activities (number of car, restaurants, cinemas per capita), and personal stimuli (recreation and entertainment). As mentioned above, one of the features of more intentional cities is the preoccupation with technological progress and an idealism in its evaluation. The are laissez fair cities are more likely

10

to share the scepticism towards modern technology and a pragmatic attitude to its applications. (b) The impact of development cycles on urban life style is obvious. The relationship to first type of the cycle, that is, international business cycle, with its connection with local urban life in the form of the performance of the local stock exchange, which lives on inflated expectations and wild rumors, is much stronger in the more laissez fair cities. This leads to a life style based on short term gains, much more socially mobile, both upward and downward. The second type of cycle, related to production restructuring, which is supposed to be more coordinated and more intentional, will produce up ward spiral of education requirements, good incentives for knowledge based industries (c) The role of the urban form in establishing different type of urbanism is well known. In Western urban sociology, the colourful stereotypes of the suburban snobbish lifestyle and a violent inner city culture are clear reflections of a socially and racially segregated urban structure aggravated by the symbolism of the divided urban landscape. In Pacific Asia, historically the urban form was shaped as much by practical considerations as by different systems of beliefs. In Hong Kong, building as large and sophisticated as Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank by N. Foster could not escape the recommendations by Fengshui specialists. In Brunei, the layout of the whole capital city, among other considerations, was based on a series of religiously selected strategic vistas. The inhabitants are not indifferent to abstract meanings of the housing plot and its invisible links to mystic points of reference. 4. A case study: Urbanisation and urban living in the Pearl River Delta The above theoretical discussions have touched a number of issues related to urbanisation patterns in Pacific Asia and the ways they affect the future urban living. The ultimate goal for this is to get strong enough bases for predicting how individuals will spend their life in the cities of the region. Among the quickly expanding Pacific Asia cities of today, some may one day become the so called mega cities, even world cities, which are supposed to change the economically vibrant, if unevenly developed, region into the main growth engine of the world economy in the early next century. One of the candidates to this rank of cities is the Pearl River Delta in South East China. 4.1 The emergence of a new type of urbanisation Before 1979, the Pearl River Delta used to be a fertile, largely agricultural area in the South East part of China. The relatively high income in the area was able to provide investment for many local markets trading non - agricultural products and services, which make the whole Delta very conducive for rapid urbanisation (Xueqiang, 1990:183). The most important feature of this area is that it forms what can be seen as a land base through which the two famous former colonies the British Hong Kong and Portuguese Macao interact with the mainland China. After the change of direction in China policy of urban development in 1978, this interaction was to transform the area beyond recognition within a few years. The urban population of the area has grown at a rate of 5% per year since1978 against a rate of only .075 per year before that (Xueqiang, ibid.).

11

Overall, at the start of urbanisation process, the area encompassed an area of 25,300sq. km. with a population of over 13 million. By 1993, the Delta has expanded to 45,026 sq. km. with a population of 22.1 million. In terms of attracting FDI, during 1980 - 1984 an amount of 1.3 billion US$ was transferred. By 1989, the total realised investment rose to 5.36 billion. To give a true scale, the percentage share of the Delta's FDI was between 13.6 % to18.7% during the period 1986 - 1993 (Sit & Yang, 1997). In terms of output, during 1980 - 1990, the Delta's annual GDP growth averaged 15.7%, higher than the NICs during their phenomenal growth. The Delta was leading the whole China in numerous indicators: retailing, government revenue, social saving, export and fixed capital investment (Sit &Yang, 1997). The outstanding economic performance of the area is not the only aspect deserving widespread attention of the researchers. Sit (1991, 1993) was one of the first to recognise the remarkable character of the urban development process there. He argues that in the Pearl River Delta there emerges a new subset of urbanisation under the sway of FDI, which he defined as foreign investment induced urbanisation, or exo-urbanisation (Sit & Yang,1997). In a paper of new urban form in the Eastern Asian region, Hall (1997)commented on the development of the Pearl River Delta that: "The outlines of a highly urbanised zone, a megalopolitan triangle, stretching from Hong Kong and Shenzen in the southeast of the Delta to Guangdong and Foshan in the north and then to Macao and Zuhai Special Economic zone in the southwest, have already appeared. What seems to be emerging is a classic megalopolitan cluster, for the physical distance between Hong Kong and Guangdong, 130 km, fits the pattern for other megalopolises: New York and Philadelphia are 150 km apart, While Beijing Tianjin, Osaka Hiroshima, Tokyo Nagoya, Tabei Taizhong, Milan Turin, and Amsterdam Antwerp are all about 130 km distance from each other". Sit & Yang (1997), however, seemed to disagree with the notion that the unusual form of urbanisation in the Pearl River Delta can be equated to a megalopolis as interpreted by Gottman (1964), citing the lack of a unified system of government or ideology and the serious barriers to free flows of material, information and especially of the population, through the borders which will still be valid after 1997. They also disagreed that another concept, the desakota, suggested by McGee (1991), can be used to describe the phenomenon. The main reasons were that, instead of being part time farmers or commuters within the zone as predicted by McGee, 70 - 80% of the residents in the Delta are non-agriculture employees. The important question is that, while the concepts of "megalopolis" or "desakota" can give us quite clear patterns of physical and spatial arrangement and development, and therefore good bases to make prediction of the features of the residents' daily life, the exo-urbanisation concept suggests only abstract interactions and linkages. A further elaboration of the possible physical features of this new form of urbanization and urban development should make our task more feasible.

12

4.2 Exo urbanization, or a unique combination of the urban policy of deliberate urbanisation and the flexible investment by TNC ? It is possible to use the conceptualisation of Pacific Asia urbanisation as a continuum of intention and adaptability, developed in the previous part, to analyze the nature of urbanisation and urban development in the Pearl River Delta. To begin with, if it is to be entered as an unified entity, the Delta urban place will occupy a unique position on the continuum. It is a case of both very strong intention from the authority and very flexible way in which urban development is funded by the foreign investors. In terms of intention, the authorities have their political and economic goals defined very clearly. An outline of urban development towards the year 2000 stipulates clearly that: "The development of the urban group in the Pearl River Delta will be worth particular attention. After their return to China, Hong Kong and Macao will continue to play roles as international central cities. The region's exchanges with Taiwan are also becoming more and more active, thus creating a favourable social environment for the reunification of the country" (Wang, 1993). It can be seen that urbanisation, besides obvious economic imperative, was also being used as a means to soften the differences, by encouraging market exchanges between mainland China and the territories it is determined to reclaim. In the replacement of the "ready to fight" mentality by a genuine openness, one may even discern an echo of the familiar postures during the years of ideological divide, when opposites territories facing each other (Eastand West Berlin, the two Koreas, etc.) were given preferential treatment to become some sort of a showcase. On a practical side, the deliberate urbanisation of the territories adjacent to Hong Kong and Macao ahead of the planned integration would have been an extremely effective way of deterring the "floating labour force" from entering the those cities, looking for better pay. Officially, the policies related to migration have always been designed to control rural urban movement in accordance with the macro economic requirements. Thus, Goldstein & Goldstein (1990:22) noted that: "the population was alternatively encouraged to migrate cities to help in industrial construction and then resettled sometimes forcibly in rural areas". Since 1980, however, China restated vigorously its policies of planned urbanization first developed in 1950s, which involved strict control of big cities and measures seeking to implement "proper" development of medium size cities and encourage the growth of small cities and towns (Goldstein &Goldstein, ibid.). In the Pearl River Delta, the rapid urbanisation of this type may have started quite deliberately before FDI started to flow. Thus, Xueqiang reported that "to attract more foreign investment, some towns and cities have given priority [to settle and start small businesses] to villagers whose Hong Kong and Macao relatives have donated money to local villages and towns" (Xueqiang, 1990:186). The proactive attitude of the Chinese side in urbanisation process was matches by vigorous responds by the Hong Kong and Macao investors. By 1993the Delta's percentage share of China

13

in terms of FDI was a staggering 16.5%,and the whole region has integrated successfully with the global economy (Sit& Yang, 1997).Discrepancies, too, started to appear. Instead of reinforcing production capacities of district towns in the Delta as it was hoped by the planners, the investment flow bypassed them in search of higher profit margins in small townships and villages. Although hailed in the official media as one of the biggest success stories, discontent with what is called the "rural disease" spreading in the Pearl River Delta began to surface. The main symptoms are: "

(1) The scattering and localisation of township and village enterprises. Take Zhejiang Province for example, almost every village in the province has factories.

(2) Agriculture has become the profession of the old and ailing, and a sideline undertaking to industry and commerce. There is a saying that all the able bodied are running commercial businesses, women are working in the factories and only the old and weak are tilling the land.

(3) Industrial pollution is worsening and the rural ecological environment is deteriorating. (4) Township and village enterprises, an upsurge of housing construction by million of

households and an increasing number of small towns have become the "fierce tigers" overtaking farmland. And the development of small towns is becoming less orderly and more inefficient" (Wang, 1993:50).

It becomes clear by now that the essence of the new form of urban development in the Pearl River Delta is a complex combination between a very strong political will of the Chinese State and powerfully motivated investment drive from the outside. When these two factors are congruent, everyone finds itself in a solid win win situation. But it has been shown in the irritation about the "rural disease" above, that these factors, too, can come into conflict with each other. The continuity of this type of exo urbanisation, as Sit & Yang no doubt hoped for, thus depends on the degree the two factors mentioned above can act as complementary elements in a concerted way, as a form of symbiosis, rather than in an agonistic manner, in which one is taking advantage of the other, as they surely can. In a foreseeable future, however, the whole integration process seems to work well. There is one powerful element which ensures that the fruitful cooperation, or symbiosis, between the two sides will be more than short term, is the fact that three fourths of the population in the Delta have relatives in Hong Kong and Macao (Xueqiang, 1990). The unique kinship character of the interaction between investors and their hosts in the Pearl River Delta may (or may not?)make this type of FDI induced urbanisation more difficult to be replicated outside China. Perhaps to some extent this is reminiscent of the interaction between the two Germanies after the fall of the Wall, or a future model for two parts of Korea? In any case, the importance of remittance in urban development has been recognised in many countries (Turkey, India, the Philippines), and the economic role of the overseas Chinese in Asia has always been visible, if not indispensable in nearly all success stories (Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia). 4.3 Impact of urban development on the value system of the individuals in the Pearl River Delta

14

The biggest impact of the serge in urban development of the Delta is the openness to outside world, and this led to the transformation of the value system of the individuals. Xueqiang (1990:194) listed some of the most important changes, that can be presented as follow: Social interaction Introvert....................................Extrovert Personal relation scope Kinship......................................Colleagues Information exchange Personal contact.............................Media Family Relation Parochial.....................................Liberal Marriage Material enhancement.................Personality, affection Women Dependence..................................Independence Food Quantity.........................................Nutrition, diversity Clothing Utilitarianism.................................Fashion, colourfulness

Interestingly, he discussed about the spread of urbanisation in the Delta region as bringing a peculiar form of dual diffusion: "From North to South, the urban culture radiated from the cities of Guangzhow and Foshan. From south to north, Hong Kong and Macao act as centres of such radiation. With return of sovereignty and continuation of capitalism for another fifty years according to "one country, two systems", Hong Kong and Macao will continue to transmit Western culture into the Delta". After standard warnings about the negative effects that will undoubtedly enter the mainland, the author went on to recognise that: "Because of its neighbours, the Delta cannot totally avoid the influence of Western ideas through television, radio, publications, mass media, and personal contact. The long time task is to build up a mixed culture in the process of absorbing advanced technology, capital, and equipment" (Xueqiang, 1990:195). It can be argued, if one looks at few precedents of technology transfer, that the last prediction seems to be rather pessimistic. First, with the current pace of mutual trade between China and the West, Hong Kong will soon cease to be the only major point of transfer: the investment and joint ventures of American high tech firms (for example, in IT and aerospatial industries) did not always need to go through Hong Kong.

15

Second, in the long run the one way street as anticipated by the author will change: the gap in the level of sophistication of the scientific, technical and cultural hardware, for the reasons stated in the first argument, will gradually be bridged. The software, that is, scientific, technical and cultural talent, books, computer programmes, plays, films, etc. from the mainland will make ways to the international scene. Evidence can be found to support this point, such as the heightened interest in Oriental philosophy, Oriental medicine, especially among the New Age circles. Chinese films and novels, even after discounting the usual mass appeal for exotica, are seriously received by a much more informed and appreciating world's audience. Echoing the point made by McGee (1991) in criticising the cultural diffusion approach of urbanisation, it can be said that the interaction of a quarter of the world's population and the rest of it will increasingly be two way.

4.4 Urban life in the Pearl River Delta by 2025: the individual perspective

The realistic forecast of living and working condition of individuals in 2025,nearly thirty years ahead, as mentioned from the beginning, remains a highly risky business. However, from the discussions above, a few big picture sketches of the future can be offered for the Pearl River Delta: Position of the Delta on the adaptable intentional continuum. Culturally, Hong Kong is a hybrid entity between a rational, pluralist, compromise bound Western business spirit and a diligent, disciplined and authority - bound attitude to work of the local populace. This rare winning combination is now getting through the trials of uncertainty. It can be anticipated that the position of the Delta on the continuum will remain the same, or perhaps moving a little bit to the "intentional" end. In that case, one may suggest that the reason is the desire of the Chinese state to establish its authority on the newly reclaimed domain. The relative importance of it in the urban system of China will however be decreased. The speed with which Shanghai is developing is a direct evidence (ADB Annual Report 1996). In addition to the traditionally formidable industrial production capacities, the new, long term development of the Pudong complex with all the element of a 21th century metropolis science & technology, transport & telecommunications, etc., are doing all it needs to become a dominating "command and control" centre for the whole coastal strip which is directly facing one the most powerful economic centres of the world The North East Asian economies of Japan, and potentially unified Korea, all of which are very close to the resources abundant Siberia. Potentially, Shanghai has all the ingredients of a world city, while Hong Kong, despite its formidable financial and managerial capacities, is obviously lacking the technological muscles, the talent pool and centres of excellence that make London, New York and Tokyo a class of their own. A tantalizing prospect for Hong Kong is to combine with Guangzhow, which can fill the gap in science and technology capacities, as many predicted (Hall, 1997). Two possible obstacles stand on the way to realisation of this exciting scenario: the presence of a physical, if non antagonistic border, and the enormous cost of bringing Guangzhow into a par with Hong Kong in terms of depth of influence. Due to very specific arrangements of the "one country two system" concept, the amalgamation of the constituent elements of the Pearl River Delta into a megalopolis as defined by Gottman (1964) is at best very uncertain. Perhaps, for the initial period, as it is happening now, the

16

interaction between Hong Kong and the rest of the Delta can be likened to the phenomenon of electricity induction (without actual physical contact) between the primary and secondary coils of a powerful transformer. If the analogy is carried further, there will be a merger into a unified network, and there may be three scenarios possible: (a) the higher side reduces substantially its voltage; (b)the lower side increases, to a substantial extent, its voltage or (c) both sides will have to make necessary adjustments. Since (a) seems to be absurd and(b) nearly impossible, (c) remains the most realistic option. The final effect would be a slight reduction in Hong Kong relative influence and an increase of its compatibility with the rest of the Delta and the country. The time span from now to 2025 may be just enough for that sort of transformation. Beyond that, Hong Kong status will depend on that of Shanghai, which is very keen to take the still vacated but legitimate slot of China among the future world cities' rank. If geographical proximity is taken into account, Singapore may have stronger claim to the world city status. Cycles of urban development in the Delta. The low tech, light industry oriented production capacities of today will become less important and will have to be scaled down to avoid losses incurred by competition from areas with relatively cheaper labour. Serious signs of market saturation of low tech electronics are already evident (Siu,1990:197, 202). As a result of restructuring and "downsizing", some middle sized cities will have to be demoted in official status due to the lowering of the size of population (similar events were recorded in recent years, see Yeh & Xueqiang (1990:48). Urbanisation in China is not irreversible. The future of urban form and urbanism in the Delta. The switching to services and more economically efficient industries will help to maintain relatively high average income in the Delta. The residents will continue to enjoy much higher personal freedom and higher living standards compared with the rest of the country. The reason is both economic and political: as an intentional urban development, the Delta is to serve as inducement for full integration with not only Hong Kong, but als te groups and embraced by concentric zones of aspiring inhabitants (See Figure 2). Recalling the "two pole diffusion" concept suggested by Wang (1993), it can be argued that in the future Pearl River Delta, Hong Kong will undoubtedly be the financial and partly cultural "command and control centre" while Guangzhow will be that of science, technology and industrial production. Thus the characters of the two elite groups are quite distinctive, although there are quite a few precedents in the Western urbanisation experience: London, with the financial centre in the city (and Canary Wharf), and the centres of academic and technological excellence represented by the "golden triangle" of the first class universities in Oxford, Cambridge and London, or Boston with its CBD at a distance from Harvard and MIT. The future two pole structure of this urban region will have profound implications for the concrete features of urban life style of the residents. Some predictions can be offered. First, in terms of transport and communication, the region will enjoy some of the most advanced form of mass transit urban transport. The reason here is two fold. On one hand, this is the guarantee that the telematic "lines of command" from the centre (Beijing) will be backed up by actual physical flows of not only goods but also the manpower, in case any mobilization and dispersion are required, given the strategic position of the area vis a vis Taiwan. On the other hand, the symbolic importance of the communication channels should not

17

be underestimated. To this function can be added the "showcase" pattern of development which is increasingly less as a form of ideological propaganda (which proliferated in the not so distant past) and more as an inducement for reunification with the prosperous and cosmopolitan Taiwan. Second, in terms of skills and occupations, a process of polarisation will gradually sort the migrants between two roughly established sectors: finance/business and science/technology/production. A substantial part of the both socially and geographically mobile residents, who are flocking to the two poles, will be intra urban migrants rather than in migrants. Hong Kong will attract entrepreneurs and service sector workers (entertainers, domestic workers, craftsmen) while Guangzhow will attract a large number of blue collar workforce and the technocrats. The social implications of this polarisation will be visible, both in the family compositions and the pattern of consumption. Third, in terms of the built environment, Hong Kong will retain its vital and diverse urban landscape with a myriad of stimuli, while Guangzhow will be a setting for urban planning and urban design experiments with eclectic styles, rigid standards, and a series of mega projects driven by prestige and technocratic (over)optimism. Fourth, the awareness of the environmental quality is increasingly an important factor in urban development. It is worth noting the almost obvious fact that the long term prospect of good environment is better in more deliberately planned city than otherwise, barring serious unintended technological oversights. If experience of adaptable type cities such as Bangkok or Manila is any indication, it can be predicted that somewhere half way from now to 2025, the environment in Hong Kong will suffer near limit pollution (especially in sea water) before getting better. On one hand, funding necessary to tackle the environmental issues (such as treatment of the notorious sewage contamination of the sea water and substandard housing) is simply beyond the available means, on the other, the environmental threat may serve as a convincing justification for much needed depopulation of the most crowded city in the world without acrimonious political repercussions. 5. Concluding remarks The urban development happening today in the Pacific Asian region represents one of the most fascinating processes of change at the coming turn of the century. The political geography of the region, however, is too complicated for straightforward predictions. With the receding of the traditional ideological division lines of the recent past, which were cutting across continents, the potential source of difference in pattern of urbanisation and urban development in Pacific Asia in the near future (at least until 2025) can be both the historical/cultural and political inclination for particular forms of urban organisation. On one hand, it is the pro-business compromise attitude, leading to a largely laissez faire pattern of urban development, with a new form of the extended metropolitan region (EMR). On the other, the authority oriented attitude to urban organisation, borne out from the political will and geared up toward nation building goals, which leads to the intentional, or deliberate pattern of urban development. Although between many cities of the region these differences might sometimes seem to be more of degree rather than substance, nevertheless, when put together, they make up a continuum with either of the ends differing markedly from its opposite. As the position of each city on this

18

continuum is the product of the respective ruling elite's vision of nationhood and the prevailing development approach, the Pearl River Delta area is a setting for unique interaction of the two ends of the continuum. The predicted outcome is a bipolar model of development with most of the areas in between succumbing to the attractions of either poles of perceived respective type of social status (finance/business, or science/technology/production) with their respective urban elites. The future of urban life in the Delta will revolve around this axis, and the links between the two poles (which are vital for the survival of the area as a unified urban entity) seem to be firmly guaranteed by the long term, powerful nationalistic motivation of the Chinese state to reintegrate Taiwan, a less prosperous but much more complex and independent-minded than Hong Kong. At a more general level, the presence of both extremes of the laissez- faire/deliberate continuum make the Pearl River Delta which still needs a proper characterisation a microcosm of the region, where the coming together of the global and the local, and the possible outcomes, are influenced not only by different development approaches, but also by a legacy of the recent ideological polarisation, by the diversity of urban cultural traditions and especially by different interpretations of national goals and national interests. The new, much talked-about globalisation is, after all, much more complicated and challenging than that preceding globalisation, which was established once during the by-gone years of colonialism. For these reasons, the future of urban life in the Delta can also be seen as representative for much of the Pacific Asia region. With the size of the Chinese economy projected to be the largest and that of Japan in the fifth place in 2025 (The Australian Institute), the deliberate end of the continuum of urban development in the region seems to outweigh the flexible one. Another globalisation, in which hopefully no players are over- or underrepresented will take a completely different shape. The future of urban living will be decided by a balance (or imbalance) between the two most important trends: on one side, it is the belief in unlimited capabilities of technology, and on the other, the painful realisation of the irreplaceable nature of resources that are running out fast. Each of the two trends will lead to a very different future. The dominance of either trend, in turn, depends on the future elite, whose vision inspire not only directions of development but also element of future urban life style. REFERENCES Asian Development Bank (1997): "The Development and Management of Asian Megacities", in Annual Report 1996. Berry, B. (1973): The Human Consequences of Urbanisation. Divergent Paths in the Urban Experience of the Twentieth Century, Macmillan, London. Clark, D. (1996): Urban World/Global City, Routledge, London & New York. Friedman, J. (1995): "Where we stand: a decade of world city research", in Knox, P. and Taylor, P.: World cities in a world system, Cambridge University Press.

19

Goldstein, S. and Goldstein A. (1990): "Town and City: New Directions in Chinese Urbanization", in Chinese Urban Reform What Model Now?, M.E. Sharpe, Inc., New York and London. Hall, P. (1966) (3rd edn 1984): The World Cities, London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson. Hall, P. (1997): "Planning for the Mega City: A New Eastern Asian Urban Form?", a paper presented at the conference on 'East West perspectives on 21st century urban development' in Jakarta, 18 - 20 June 1997. Kang, Chen (1995): The Chinese Economy in Transition: Micro Changes and Macro Implications, Singapore University Press, Singapore University. Kirkby, R. (1985): Urbanization in China: Town and Country in a Developing Country, Columbia University Press, New York. Kwok, R., Parish W., Yeh A. Xueqiang X. (1993): Chinese Urban Reform What Model Now?, M.E. Sharpe, Inc., New York and London. Lin, G. (1994): "Changing theoretical perspectives on urbanisation in Asian developing countries", in Third World Planning Review, Vol 16 (1). Lloyd, G. (1996): Adversaries and Authorities, Cambridge University Press. McGee, T. G. (1971) The Urbanisation Process in the Third World: Explorations in Search of a Theory, London: Bell. McGee, T.G. (1991) Asia's Growing Urban Rings. Work in Progress, United Nations University, 13/3, 9. Sassen, S. (1995): "On concentration and centrality in the global city", in Knox, P. and Taylor, P.: World cities in a world system, Cambridge University Press. Sit, V.F.S., Yang, C. (1997): "Foreign Investment Induced Exo Urbanisation in the Pearl River Delta, China", in Urban Studies, 34, 647 - 677. Sit, V. (1995): Beijing, The Nature and Planning of a Chinese Capital City, John Wiley & Sons, Chichester. Siu, H. (1990): "The Politics of Growth: Pearl River Delta Experiences", in Kwok, R., Parish W., Yeh A. Xueqiang X. (1993): Chinese Urban Reform What Model Now?, M.E. Sharpe, Inc., New York and London. Sudjic, D. (1995): "Megalopolis Now". The Guardian Weekend, 24 June, 27 35. Tang, W. (1993): A Critical Review of the English Literature on Chinese Urbanisation, Hong

20

Kong Institute of Asia Pacific Studies, Hong Kong. Tran, M. (1997): "Tigers roaring at wrong predator", The Guardian, 2 Aug, 10. Thrift N. and Forbes D. (ed.) (1987): The Socialist Third World Urban Development and Territorial Planning. Wang, Y. (1993): China: Urban Development towards the Year 2000, Hong Kong Institute of Asia Pacific Studies, Hong Kong. Xueqiang, X. (1990): "Urban development Issues in the Pearl River Delta" in Kwok, R., Parish W., Yeh A. Xueqiang X. (1993): Chinese Urban Reform What Model Now?, M.E. Sharpe, Inc., New York and London.

21