City unbound: emerging mega-conurbations in Asia^*

* This special issue is dedicated to the memory of John Friedmann, scholar, teacher, poet, and friend whose expansive ideas and personal warmth were an inspiration to all of us. This project was initiated by Friedmann in 2015, and developed with Sorensen over a year of frequent email exchanges and drafting of this conceptual framework. We organized an initial workshop in September of 2016, to explore these ideas in collaboration with a small group of scholars who are actively researching Asian urbanization processes, to test out the strengths and weaknesses of these ideas. This was intended to be the first stage of a larger research collaboration on mega-urbanization in Asia. John passed away in June of 2017, just as we were receiving the final drafts of papers, and after we had completed revision of the Introduction and part one (The challenges posed by mega-conurbation) of this paper (which draw heavily on the conceptual framework sent to workshop participants in August of 2016), and which we had submitted to International Planning Studies in May of 2017 as a co-authored proposal for this special issue. Part two (Initial contributions to mega-conurbations research) was written by Sorensen in Fall of 2018 after all the papers had been accepted for publication. Participants in the workshop in addition to those contributing papers to this special issue included Delik Hudalah, Aseem Inam, Kuni Kamizaki, Roger Keil, Michael Leaf, Raj Reddy, Ivy Wong, and Anthony Yeh, all of whom contributed to the discussion and debates.

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size

Acknowledgements

I am particularly grateful for the support and encouragement of Leonie Sandercock, who has graciously allowed me to include John Friedmann’s paper in this special issue, and his contributions to this introduction. I also wish to acknowledge the financial and logistical support of the University of Toronto Asian Institute, the Department of Geography and Planning, and the Dean of the University of Toronto Scarborough for our 2016 workshop. This project could not have happened without the engagement, ideas, and support of all those involved in this special issue, and particularly John’s inspiring contributions, but I alone am responsible for any remaining errors and omissions, André Sorensen, November 2018.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

* This special issue is dedicated to the memory of John Friedmann, scholar, teacher, poet, and friend whose expansive ideas and personal warmth were an inspiration to all of us. This project was initiated by Friedmann in 2015, and developed with Sorensen over a year of frequent email exchanges and drafting of this conceptual framework. We organized an initial workshop in September of 2016, to explore these ideas in collaboration with a small group of scholars who are actively researching Asian urbanization processes, to test out the strengths and weaknesses of these ideas. This was intended to be the first stage of a larger research collaboration on mega-urbanization in Asia. John passed away in June of 2017, just as we were receiving the final drafts of papers, and after we had completed revision of the Introduction and part one (The challenges posed by mega-conurbation) of this paper (which draw heavily on the conceptual framework sent to workshop participants in August of 2016), and which we had submitted to International Planning Studies in May of 2017 as a co-authored proposal for this special issue. Part two (Initial contributions to mega-conurbations research) was written by Sorensen in Fall of 2018 after all the papers had been accepted for publication. Participants in the workshop in addition to those contributing papers to this special issue included Delik Hudalah, Aseem Inam, Kuni Kamizaki, Roger Keil, Michael Leaf, Raj Reddy, Ivy Wong, and Anthony Yeh, all of whom contributed to the discussion and debates.

1. Reasons for failure to act on diseconomies include lack of relevant information, insufficient understanding of observed trends, large margins of error in existing statistical information, long delays between an occurrence and its capture by the relevant information system, fragmentation of governmental units, government secrecy, financial constraints, corruption, censorship, disbelief in accuracy of information, short time horizons, inappropriate incentive structures, lack of a sense of urgency, countervailing arguments, a lack of analytical capacity, etc. Many of these are seen in contemporary failures to act to prevent climate change, which promises to be extraordinarily costly in multiple dimensions in the medium term.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [grant number 435-2016-1234].