City unbound: emerging mega-conurbations in AsiaFootnote^*

* 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.

Bibliography

• Batty, M. 2013. The new Science of Cities. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. p. 496.
   Google Scholar
• Björkman, L., and C. Venkataramani. 2019. “Mediating Mumbai: Ethnographic Explorations of Urban Linkage.” International Planning Studies 24 (1): 81–95.
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Boelens, L., and G. de Roo. 2016. “Planning of Undefined Becoming: First Encounters of Planners Beyond the Plan.” Planning Theory 15 (1): 42–67.
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Douglass, M. 2000. “Mega-Urban Regions and World City Formation: Globalisation, the Economic Crisis and Urban Policy Issues in Pacific Asia.” Urban Studies 37 (12): 2315–2335.
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Friedmann, J. 2005. China's Urban Transition. Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota Press.
   Google Scholar
• Friedmann, J. 2011. “Becoming Urban: Periurban Dynamics in Vietnam and China — Introduction.” Pacific Affairs 84 (3): 425–434.
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Friedmann, J. 2019. “Thinking About Complexity and Planning.” International Planning Studies 24 (1): 13–22.
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Geddes, P. 1915. Cities in Evolution: An Introduction to the Town Planning Movement and to the Study of Civics. London: Williams.
   Google Scholar
• Ginsberg, N., B. Koppel, and T. G. McGee, eds. 1991. The Extended Metropolis: Settlement Transition in Asia. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
   Google Scholar
• Gottmann, J. 1957. “Megalopolis or the Urbanization of the Northeastern Seaboard.” Economic Geography 33 (3): 189–200.
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Harms, E. 2019. “Megalopolitan Megalomania: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam’s Southeastern Region and the Speculative Growth Machine.” International Planning Studies 24 (1): 53–67.
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Hoyler, M., and J. Harrison. 2015. Megaregions: Globalization's new Urban Form? Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.
   Google Scholar
• Ingram, G. K., and Y.-h. Hong. 2012. Value Capture and Land Policies. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
   Google Scholar
• Jones, G. W., and M. Douglass. 2008. Mega-urban Regions in Pacific Asia: Urban Dynamics in a Global era. Singapore: NUS Press.
   Google Scholar
• Krugman, P. R. 1996. The Self-Organizing Economy. Cambridge, MA, USA, Blackwell Publishers.
   Google Scholar
• Labbé, D. 2016. “Critical Reflections on Land Appropriation and Alternative Urbanization Trajectories in Periurban Vietnam.” Cities (london, England) 53 (Complete): 150–155.
   Google Scholar
• Labbé, D. 2019. “Examining the Governance of Emerging Urban Regions in Vietnam: The Case of the Red River Delta.” International Planning Studies 24 (1): 40–52.
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Laquian, A. A. 2005. Beyond Metropolis: The Planning and Governance of Asia's Mega-Urban Regions. Washington, DC: Baltimore, Woodrow Wilson Center Press; Johns Hopkins University Press.
   Google Scholar
• Leaf, M. 2016. “The Politics of Periurbanization in Asia.” Cities (london, England) 53 (Complete): 130–133.
   Google Scholar
• Lindblom, C. E. 1965. The Intelligence of Democracy; Decision Making Through Mutual Adjustment. New York: Free Press.
   Google Scholar
• McGee, T. G. 1991. “The Emergence of Desakota Regions in Asia: Expanding a Hypothesis.” In The Extended Metropolis: Settlement Transition in Asia, edited by N. Ginsberg, B. Koppel, and T. G. McGee, 3–25. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
   Google Scholar
• McGee, T. G., and I. M. Robinson, eds. 1995. The Mega-Urban Regions of Southeast Asia. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.
   Google Scholar
• Portugali, J. 2012. Complexity Theories of Cities Have Come of age: An Overview with Implications to Urban Planning and Design. Heidelberg: Springer.
   Google Scholar
• Roo, G., and E. A. Silva, eds. 2010. A Planner’s Encounter with Complexity. Aldershot: Ashgate.
   Google Scholar
• Shatkin, G. 2016. “The Real Estate Turn in Policy and Planning: Land Monetization and the Political Economy of Peri-Urbanization in Asia.” Cities (london, England) 53: 141–149.
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Shatkin, G. 2017. Cities for Profit the Real Estate Turn in Asia's Urban Politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 1 online resource.
   Google Scholar
• Shatkin, G. 2019. “The Planning of Asia’s Mega-Conurbations: Contradiction and Contestation in Extended Urbanization.” International Planning Studies 24 (1): 68–80.
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Simon, D. 2008. “Urban Environments: Issues on the Peri-Urban Fringe.” Annual Review of Environment and Resources 33: 167–185.
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Sorensen, A. 2016. “Periurbanization as the Institutionalization of Place: The Case of Japan.” Cities (london, England) 53 (Complete): 134–140.
   Google Scholar
• Sorensen, A. 2018. “Institutions and Urban Space: Land, Infrastructure, and Governance in the Production of Urban Property.” Planning Theory and Practice 19 (1): 21–38.
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Sorensen, A. 2019. “Tokaido Megalopolis: Lessons From a Shrinking Mega-Conurbation.” International Planning Studies 24 (1): 23–39.
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Webster, D. 2011. “An Overdue Agenda: Systematizing East Asian Peri-Urban Research.” Pacific Affairs 84 (4): 631–642.
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Xu, Z. 2015. “Globalization and the Megaregion: Investigating the Evolution of the Pearl River Delta in a Historical Perspective.” In Megaregions: Globalization's new Urban Form?, edited by M. Hoyler and J. Harrison, 175–199. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.
   Google Scholar
• Zheng, Y., T. Chen, J. Cai, and S. Liu. 2009. “Regional Concentration and Region-Based Urban Transition: China's Mega-Urban Region Formation in the 1990S.” Urban Geography 30 (3): 312–333.
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar