Urbanization as a process is rife with inequality, in Southeast Asia as anywhere else, but resistance and contestation persist on the ground. In this element, the author sets out to achieve three goals: 1) to examine the political nature of urban development; 2) to scrutinize the implications of power inequality in urban development discussions; and 3) to highlight topical and methodological contributions to urban studies from Southeast Asia. The key to a robust understanding is groundedness: knowledge about the everyday realities of urban life that are hard to see on the surface but dominate how the city functions, with particular attention to human agency and the political life of marginalized groups. Ignoring politics in research on urbanization essentially perpetuates the power inequities in urban development; this element thus focuses not just on Southeast Asian cities and urbanization per se, but also on critical perspectives on patterns and processes in their development.
The study of urbanization in Southeast Asia has been a growing field of research over the past decades. The Routledge Handbook of Urbanization in Southeast Asia opens a new perspective on urban life i
This book examines the active role of urban citizens in constructing alternative urban spaces as tangible resistance towards capitalist production of urban spaces that continue to encroach various nei
Urban regeneration research studies not only on the design aspects of urban planning but also takes into account the demography, sociological aspects, cultural shifts, economic development over time,
