The Future of Cities in a Post-national Urban Age in Asia – Corporate Globopolis versus Vernacular Cosmopolis

Abstract

The long held idea of the city as theater of social life is being replaced by a historically new paradigm of the city as an “urban sector” posed as an “engine of growth” with government in service of a globalizing corporate economy. In Asia support for this new paradigm is coming from the neo-developmental state that is facilitating the emergence of a corporate managed “mixed assemblage” of denationalized spaces that are part of emerging intercity networks rising out of the nation-state to articulate global flows of capital. Millions of international migrant workers in Asia add to a new era of post-national urbanization. However, democratic reforms, devolution of government, and the rise of civil society are rising to challenge corporatization by championing issues of social justice, the right to the city, and the vernacular neighborhood. As the dynamics continue to interplay, a contest over the future of the city is emerging between the city as an inclusive cosmopolis of diversity versus the city as a corporate globopolis of networked privatized spaces for elites. Of particular interest are the ways in which transborder intercity networks based on social cooperation rather than competitive corporate relations can create new synergies for economic resilience for secondary city regions.