Emerging World Cities in Pacific Asia

PACIFIC ASIA IS recognized as the fastest growing region in the world. Its cities are critically important to both its economic and its social development. This edited collection is the result of a research project exploring the connections between global restructuring and the cities along the Western Pacific Rim. Conducted in the early 1990s, the project was supported by the United Nations University and administered by the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

A concept central to this book is that of the functional city system – that is, a network of cities that are linked around a particular economic or sociopolitical function. These networks serve to define a city’s connections to the world economy, and hence its importance within the interdependent web of evolving global relationships. This concept, according to the editors, transcends the notion of North–South dependency. It is not location or population that determines a city’s significance, but its accumulation of functions and links. This book is aimed at a systematic appraisal of the factors affecting the role of cities within Pacific Asia.
The book is divided into three parts. Part I establishes a background within which changing urban systems in the region can be better understood, and looks at trends in the interaction between global processes and the cities in the region. Part II has eight chapters reporting on individual cities or national urban systems, which examine their different responses and their changing positions within the world economy. Contributors have considered a range of factors not necessarily limited to the economic sphere. Part III focuses on three “borderless economies” – the Singapore growth triangle, the Hong Kong-Zhugiang delta, and the urban belt stretching between Tokyo, the two Koreas and northeast China. It is suggested that this urban corridor may provide a sense of what the urban future holds for other parts of Pacific Asia.