An Overdue Agenda: Systematizing East Asian Peri-Urban Research

This review stems from recent articles on East Asian peri-urbanization in Pacific Affairs, particularly the special September 2011 issue. Research on the peri-urbanization process in East Asia, whereby rural land transitions, often highly eventfully, into urban land on the city periphery is enjoying resurgence, but remains highly fragmented. Land use change detection analysis is proceeding full-tilt thanks to increasingly inexpensive satellite imagery and associated funding, while the sustainability movement is motivating technically oriented assessment of land use efficiency. However, there is insufficient understanding of the macro forces driving the rapidly changing nature of East Asian peri-urbanization associated with rapid economic change. New drivers such as residential development, e.g., bedroom communities; amenity, e.g., weekend tourism, second homes; theme zones, e.g., Disneylands, F1 racing tracks, religious complexes; and outward spread of high-tech are ascendant, as manufacturing becomes less dominant. Local governance, including land use regimes, is seriously understudied, despite pressing issues such as the creation of vast special economic zones; jurisdictional over-bounding in the communist countries, and under-bounding elsewhere; and local government capture by property development interests, organized crime, family dynasties, etc. Potential high synergy exists in meshing institutional understanding with the technical longitudinal data being generated through land detection and sustainability-oriented studies. Although more social scientists, particularly anthropologists, are increasingly studying peri-urbanization from the bottom-up perspective of existing communities, in contrast with the dominant view from the existing city, such studies would benefit from frameworks better enabling comparative understanding and synergy with those undertaking peri-urban analysis from other perspectives.