Housing in Southeast Asian Capital Cities

Book excerpt: The author presents some of the wider debates on housing and development while focusing on the major Southeast Asian capital cities: Jakarta, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Metro Manila. All these cities have expanded enormously in terms of population and size, all have enormous problems ranging from provision of clean water and sustainable housing for the poor to dealing with a constant inflow of rural-urban migrants. Despite this, most city governments remain worryingly ineffectual or uncommitted to solving urgent problems of their expanding cities.