The rapid urban transition now underway in Asia focuses on a limited number of mega-urban regions (MURs) that have reached population sizes in excess of 10 million people. This book examines four of these urban agglomerations–Jakarta, Manila, Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh–in Southeast Asia and two Shanghai and Taipei–in East Asia. The conventional use of administrative boundaries of core urban areas to analyse these MURs fails to account for their expansion into peri-urban areas and beyond and thus substantially underestimates their scale, pace of growth and growing national prominence.
Drawing on unpublished census data for 1990 and 2000, the authors re-estimate actual agglomeration sizes and assess social and demographic dynamics across core, inner and outer zones of each MUR. They conclude that these mega-urban regions continue to increase their share of national populations, and zones immediately beyond the official metropolitan boundaries are where the most dramatic changes are occuring.
From ARI conference Growth Dynamics of Mega-Urban Regions in Asia, 24-25 June 2004.
