Progress in planning - has there been any? The case of the cities of East Asia

Almost from their beginnings the major cities of East Asia have been focal points for international processes involving colonial administration, trade, manufactured goods, exports and international flows of capital and technology. These sequential processes have created a particular kind of city more geared to facilitating international linkages than with meeting the social needs of their very large populations. Strong central governments have driven economic growth at the expense of anything else; local government is virtually invisible and the politics of exclusion practiced throughout all of East Asia has ensured that local concerns are rarely heard or addressed. One result is that there are only very few cases of urban planning as practiced in Western cities. Although the region abounds with examples of market failure, inadequate housing, deplorable levels of pollution and social polarisation, national governments set their sights on achieving levels of economic growth in a few decades what it took the West to achieve in centuries. The growth and form and function of the big city in East Asia therefore directly reflect the ways governments and enterprises have interacted with the international system. This paper explores the exposure of East Asian cities to international processes in the recent past, and argues for forms of government intervention in city development that may be necessary for their very survival.