Bangkok’s expansion and population increase are both causes and consequences of rapid economic
transformation and growth. In this light, the study examines the synergic conditions that are operating in the
Bangkok region, that define the relationship between economic growth and spatial expansion. What is emerging
is a chaotic tapestry of an urban and rural landscape which reflects a bonanza form of development and has
accelerated in the last ten years.
Moreover, there is evidence supporting an urban form that is emerging at Bangkok’s edge, extending up to 100
kilometres from the central city, which is neither city nor countryside. It is a settlement system characterised by
an intense land use mix, where agriculture, industry, housing, and recreation all inflect upon each other. Within
this region there has been a shift of labour from farm to off-farm sectors within the strictly defined rural areas.
The dissertation argues for a new set of definitions to account for an extended urban settlement pattern which is
sensitive to the prevailing heterogeneous space economy. The term Region Based Urbanization (RBU) is
introduced to describe the phenomena in a region with 14 million people, now known as the Extended Bangkok
Metropolitan Region (EBMR).
Aside from affirming RBU as the predominant settlement form in the EBMR, there are three notable conclusions
to this study:
(i) Since the mid-nineteenth century diverse and disparate forms of dominant capital have contributed to outer
city development.
(ii) As the region diversifies, and further affirms its economic primacy within Thailand there is indication of
increasing disparities and uneven development among socio-economic classes. (iii) There is empirical support to challenge traditional rural-urban transition models. Outer areas of the EBMR,
which are defined as ‘rural’, are not only ‘holding’ population, but are the destination of a large migration from
peripheral regions of the Kingdom.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/6972 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Greenberg, Charles |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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