ABSTRACT

Most cities in Southeast Asia face challenges that are a direct result of colonization: socio-spatial division, incomplete infrastructure, and fragmented planning. Colonial planning strategies were often absorbed into decolonized nation-states with few changes, in particular the strategy of differential planning, in which the upper-class areas were formally planned while lower-class and indigenous kampung areas were largely left alone to grow in the informal land market. In the colonial era, this dualism had stemmed from a belief that locals were of a different race and culture and should be kept separate, whereas in the postcolonial era the main factor that sustained dualism was, to a certain extent, the world economy’s international division of labor. Nonetheless, with the end of Western colonialism, nationalist elites hoped to transform colonial space into egalitarian postcolonial space, supported by an ideal modern infrastructure applied to all parts of the city.