Rethinking Urban Competition and Sustainability in East Asia

Abstract

The paper advances five interrelated propositions: 1) That, as major sites of economic growth in the global economy, cities constitute an interconnected global system. 2) That contemporary cities are best understood as regional in the scale of their interdependencies and should be treated as functionally integrated territorial units. 3) That intercity cooperation across national boundaries as important as competition among cities for global capital. 4) That the call for a “sustainable” city is nothing less than a call for the “good city” with its dimensions of good governance, good management, and good out-comes.5) That the scale of megacities requires governance processes that are structured according to the twin principles of “subsidiarity” and “democratic participation.”