ABSTRACT
Urban deconcentration, suburbanization and the emergence of urban elements in the outskirts of established cities are common spatial development patterns worldwide. Moreover, in Southeast Asia, more of the urban population will reside in suburbs rather than city cores of its megacities such as Jakarta, Bangkok and Manila (Murakami et al. 2005). In the past few decades, new towns, industrial parks and other urban-scale megaprojects have transformed the suburban structure of these megacities. Dick and Rimmer (1998) have suggested that the rebundling of urban elements in Southeast Asian suburbs were triggered by the rise of the middle class as well as trends in the global economy such as the transnational relocation of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in manufacturing. According to some estimates, the manufacturing sector’s contribution to Southeast Asia’s economic growth is 3–8 times higher than that of non-manufacturing (Felipe 1998). Over the past four decades, the manufacturing sector has played a vital role in the formation of Southeast Asia’s major cities such as Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Manila and Bangkok.
