The City in Southeast Asia explores the ways of moving beyond outmoded paradigms of the Third World City. Under Patterns, the authors look at the global cities of Singapore, Hong Kong, and Kuala Lumpur, and then the national capitals of Bangkok, Jakarta, and Manila, in relation to the second cities of Chiang Mai, Surabaya, Cebu, and Penang. Processes focuses upon the privitization of climate through air-conditioned environments, the industrialization of consumption in the form of large shopping malls, the role of cities as platforms for the globalization strategies of Asian multinationals, and the contest at street-level between public and private space. Finally, Policy addresses governance and markets with regard to key issues in urban and land-use planning.

Peter Rimmer and Howard Dick jointly bring to this volume seventy-years experience of working on urban and regional development in Southeast Asia. Their multidisciplinary analysis of the urban impacts of globalization draws on geography, economics, and history to bring the cities of Southeast Asia into a wider international discourse with implications for research, business, and policy.