The planning of Asia’s mega-conurbations: contradiction and contestation in extended urbanization

ABSTRACT

This paper analyzes the political economy of mega-conurbation development in Asia – the interests that influence the agendas of infrastructure and urban development that shape their growth, and the distributional issues that these agendas give rise to. It specifically interrogates the role of key actors operating at a transregional scale, including national state actors and private corporate developers. The paper focuses attention on two ‘optics’ through which these actors view the opportunities and challenges presented by mega-conurbation development – the optic of the land-infrastructure-finance-economic development nexus, and the optic of the rent gap. Drawing on examples from across Asia, the paper illustrates the roles that these two optics play in shaping agendas of spatial change, and argues that theorizing the role of powerful transregional actors should be a central focus of analysis in interpreting the contradictions generated by mega-conurbation development.

KEYWORDS:

• Conurbations
• Asian cities
• extended urbanization

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Turok (2016) makes a similar argument in the case of Africa, claiming that the operationalization of the ‘land-infrastructure-finance nexus’ is beginning to bring about massive urban change in African cities.

2. I have discussed the role of rent gaps in shaping spatial patterns of urban development and the land development strategies of state actors at greater length elsewhere (Shatkin 2016). My intent here is to explore the ways that the politics of mega-conurbations are shaped by the interaction between state interests in the land-infrastructure-finance-economic development nexus and corporate interests of exploiting rent gaps.