Articulating Intra-Asian Urbanism: The Production of Satellite Cities in Phnom Penh

Abstract

Privately built satellite cities are becoming an increasingly common urban development concept in peri-urban areas of South-east Asian cities. While these projects are beginning to receive academic attention, the majority of studies have a limited capacity to explain why and how they are produced. Most satellite cities built in the past five years have some degree of foreign influence from other East Asian countries in terms of invested capital, planning concepts or urban design and architecture. The majority of this influence originates from within the East Asian region. This paper argues that an investigation which incorporates both the relational and the territorial can increase an understanding of the production of satellite cities. This argument is illustrated with empirical research on two satellite city projects in Phnom Penh, Cambodia: one by a Korean developer and another by Indonesian conglomerate Ciputra.

Globalising sustainable urbanism: the role of international masterplanners

“…International consultants in the built environment industry have in the past been seen as agents of structural forces, in particular globalisation and neoliberalism. Such forces, and the interurban competition they engender, it is argued, can drive the replication of similar patterns of urban development around the world (Percival and Waley ; McNeill ; Bunnell ; King ). The work delivered by international consultants may be more globally than locally oriented, and ideas initially developed for one context may be presented again in another (Bunnell and Das ; Banerjee ; Adam ; Haila ).…”

Transecting Security and Space in Phnom Penh

“…The transect routes (see figure 1) highlight historical and contemporary aspects of power. Whilst Phnom Penh has a series of edge-city projects and more are planned (Paling, 2012;Percival and Waley, 2012), we focus on the microgeographies of security around the symbolic core of the city and forms of security deployed around these core sites and symbols of power. (5) Besides the initial walks depicted on figure 1, we rewalked sections of each transect four times to generate detailed maps of the private security, police, and gendarmes present.…”

Shenzhen: satellite city or city of satellites?

“…Satellite city concepts, designs and imaginaries 'travel' across East-and Southeast Asia's borders in many ways; partly because architects, planners, consultants and/or developers increasingly work across national borders, partly also because of mutual referencing and rivalry between emerging mega-city regions aspiring to become 'world class' (Zhang 2012;Ong 2011). Examples include the private-sector development of satellite cities in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, in which master planning consultants from Singapore and developers from South Korea and Indonesia were involved (Percival and Waley 2012), and several megaprojects in the peri-urban area south of Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam), developed by firms from amongst others South Korea, Malaysia and Hong Kong (Douglass and Huang 2007). While a first wave of new towns or satellite cities (Tokyo 1920s/1930s, Southeast-Asia 1960s/1970s/1980s) were initially planned rather monofunctionally, either as residential commuter suburbs or as industrial towns, the most recent wave of new towns and satellite cities seems to have a different character, more in line with what is currently happening across the Global South.…”