Book Highlight: Beyond Metropolis

Title : Beyond Metropolis: The Planning and Governance of Asia's Mega Urban Regions
Writer : Aprodicio A. Laquian
Woodrow Wilson enter Press Washington, D.C.  The Johns Hopkins University Press Baltimore
Year : 2015 (USA edition)

An interesting aspect from the asia week survey was the suggestion that a city's size seemed to have mattered in making the city work more effective, albeit in the opposite direction.  Small size, which may make it easier to manage urban afairs may be related.  The survey respondents at the survey considered effective and efficient governance the key issue in achieving a better quality of life in cities.  The key elements of good governance were the rule of law, transparency, effectiveness and efficiency, accountability, responsiveness, consensus, equity and strategic vision.

In mega urban regions, there are three types of governance structures have been used at various time in their history :
1.  Autonomous local governments; Independently carry out planning, policy making, legislation, and the execution of government function (exp.  Hongkong, Macau, Guangzhou)
2.  A mixed system of regional governance; Authority, power, and resources are shared among central, regional, and local government institutions, and resposibilities for public functions are allocated to specific levels of government (exp. Jakarta, Bangkok, Mumbai)
3.  Unified regional governance.  A single governance structure plans, manages, finances, supports and mantains services in an areawide territory and authority and power are vested in this single unit.  (Beijing, Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai an Tokyo).

And then about the slum upgrading is based on the theories that gained a great deal that poor people have the capability to effectively deal with their own needs and given the appropriate support to empower them, could be enabled to meet these needs themselves.

Housing managements : The enabling approach is at a transational stage.  Providing security of tenure to low-income people encourages housing consolidation, self help and mutual aid.  Leaving people alone to deal with their own problems encourages the growth of NGOs and other elements of civil society that empower people to look at their own concerns.  Its also hoped that people's income, education, and civic awareness will have matured enough to make possible more ordered housing management.

City regions may play a very important role in the spread of norms of democratic governance, the value of environmental protection, and the ideals of social justice and basic human rights.  As Aristotle said centuries ago, 'city air makes man free'.  It is that commitment to civitas, the right to citizenship in a free community and assuming responsibility for actions that uphold the common good that makes citizens' involvement the keystone for city-region development.  Mega-urban regions and megapolitan areas already are, and will continue to be, the dominant forms of settlements in the new millennium.  Their planning and governance provide the main instruments for achieving their fullest development potentials.