IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/growch/v52y2021i1p130-149.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The patterns and driving forces of uneven regional growth in ASEAN countries: A tale of two Thailands' path toward regional coordinated development

Author

Listed:
  • Wei Lang
  • Muzhe Pan
  • Jiemin Wu
  • Tingting Chen
  • Xun Li

Abstract

Uneven development has long been a critical issue in geography and urban studies, leading to economically inefficient urbanization, environmentally unbalanced regions, and socially unequal livelihoods. As one result, primate cities and urban primacy form within a hierarchical urban system, to which urban and regional planning must positively respond. It is worth noting that Thailand has experienced a number of important urbanization issues related to developing countries, such as semicolonialism and internal colonialism. This study aims to investigate regional uneven development based on primacy theory and the rank‐size rule, which are common in most Asian and developing countries. We examined the urbanization processes in Thailand, from 2000 to 2015, by looking at factors of population, GDP, land use, transportation networks, and nighttime light, which provide very recent regional development patterns. The second set of analyses explained the degree of primacy among different provinces and their ranking hierarchies. By presenting the persistent disparities of contemporary urbanization in Thailand and exploring its driving forces, this study offers insights into planning and policy and underscores the importance of regional coordinated development for achieving sustainable urbanization in Southeast Asian countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Wei Lang & Muzhe Pan & Jiemin Wu & Tingting Chen & Xun Li, 2021. "The patterns and driving forces of uneven regional growth in ASEAN countries: A tale of two Thailands' path toward regional coordinated development," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(1), pages 130-149, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:growch:v:52:y:2021:i:1:p:130-149
    DOI: 10.1111/grow.12459
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/grow.12459
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/grow.12459?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kamerschen, David R, 1969. "Further Analysis of Overurbanization," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 17(2), pages 235-253, January.
    2. Surinder Mehta, 1964. "Some demographic and economic correlates of primate cities: A case for revaluation," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 1(1), pages 136-147, March.
    3. Tingting Chen & John D. Radke & Wei Lang & Xun Li, 2020. "Environment resilience and public health: Assessing healthcare's vulnerability to climate change in the San Francisco Bay Area," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(2), pages 607-625, June.
    4. Yeh, Anthony Gar-On & Xu, Xueqiang, 1984. "Provincial Variation of Urbanization and Urban Primacy in China," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 18(3), pages 1-20, November.
    5. Mutlu, Servet, 1989. "Urban Concentration and Primacy Revisited: An Analysis and Some Policy Conclusions," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 37(3), pages 611-639, April.
    6. Henderson, Vernon, 2002. "Urban primacy, external costs, and quality of life," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(1-2), pages 95-106, February.
    7. Paolo Postiglione & Maria Simona Andreano & Roberto Benedetti, 2017. "Spatial Clusters in EU Productivity Growth," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(1), pages 40-60, March.
    8. Md. Arfanuzzaman & Bharat Dahiya, 2019. "Sustainable urbanization in Southeast Asia and beyond: Challenges of population growth, land use change, and environmental health," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(2), pages 725-744, June.
    9. Dean M. Hanink, 2010. "Perspectives on Regional Change: A Review Essay on Handbook of Regional Growth and Development Theories," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(1), pages 3-27, March.
    10. Martin Brockerhoff, 1999. "Urban Growth in Developing Countries: A Review of Projections and Predictions," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 25(4), pages 757-778, December.
    11. Wen-Tai Hsu & Thomas J. Holmes, 2009. "Optimal City Hierarchy: A Dynamic Programming Approach to Central Place Theory," 2009 Meeting Papers 342, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    12. Susanne A. Frick & Andrés Rodríguez†Pose, 2018. "Big or Small Cities? On city size and economic growth," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(1), pages 4-32, March.
    13. Alberto F. Ades & Edward L. Glaeser, 1995. "Trade and Circuses: Explaining Urban Giants," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(1), pages 195-227.
    14. Lang, Wei & Long, Ying & Chen, Tingting, 2018. "Rediscovering Chinese cities through the lens of land-use patterns," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 362-374.
    15. Khalid Sekkat, 2017. "Urban Concentration and Poverty in Developing Countries," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(3), pages 435-458, September.
    16. D. Michael Ray & Peter G. Hall & Daniel P. O’Donoghue, 2019. "The elusive quest for balanced regional growth from Barlow to Brexit: Lessons from partitioning regional employment growth in Great Britain," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(1), pages 266-284, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mingzhi Zhang & Xiangyu Zhou & Chao Chen & Jianxu Liu & Jiaxi Li & Fuying Huan & Bowen Wang, 2023. "Enterprise Spatial Agglomeration and Economic Growth in Northeast China: Policy Implications for Uneven to Sustainable Development," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(15), pages 1-17, July.
    2. Likun Wu & Wei Lang & Tingting Chen, 2024. "Deciphering Urban Land Use Patterns in the Shenzhen–Dongguan Cross-Boundary Region Based on Multisource Data," Land, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-24, January.
    3. Muzhe Pan & Yaofu Huang & Yawen Qin & Xun Li & Wei Lang, 2022. "Problems and Strategies of Allocating Public Service Resources in Rural Areas in the Context of County Urbanization," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(21), pages 1-20, November.
    4. Uddin, Gazi Salah & Hasan, Md. Bokhtiar & Phoumin, Han & Taghizadeh-Hesary, Farhad & Ahmed, Ali & Troster, Victor, 2023. "Exploring the critical demand drivers of electricity consumption in Thailand," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    5. Hiranya Sritart & Somchat Taertulakarn & Hiroyuki Miyazaki, 2022. "Disparities in Childhood Obesity Prevalence and Spatial Clustering Related to Socioeconomic Factors in Isaan, Thailand," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(1), pages 1-18, December.
    6. Hechang Cai & Zhijun Feng & Wen Zhou & Jinghan Chen & Zinan Chen, 2023. "Understanding the spatial polarization pattern of technology transfer network in the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay area," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(1), pages 4-25, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Junius, Karsten, 1997. "The determinants of urban concentration," Kiel Working Papers 835, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    2. Davis, James C. & Henderson, J. Vernon, 2003. "Evidence on the political economy of the urbanization process," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 98-125, January.
    3. Brueckner, Jan K. & Lall, Somik V., 2015. "Cities in Developing Countries," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 1399-1455, Elsevier.
    4. Christian Düben & Melanie Krause, 2021. "Population, light, and the size distribution of cities," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(1), pages 189-211, January.
    5. Pholo Bala, Alain, 2009. "Urban concentration and economic growth: checking for specific regional effects," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2009038, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    6. Gilles Duranton, 2007. "From cities to productivity and growth in developing countries," Working Papers tecipa-306, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    7. Cem Karayalcin & Hakan Yilmazkuday, 2015. "Trade and Cities," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 29(3), pages 523-549.
    8. Luisito Bertinelli & Eric Strobl, 2007. "Urbanisation, Urban Concentration and Economic Development," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 44(13), pages 2499-2510, December.
    9. Chen, Ying & Henderson, J. Vernon & Cai, Wei, 2017. "Political favoritism in China’s capital markets and its effect on city sizes," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 69-87.
    10. Kandogan, Yener, 2014. "The effect of foreign trade and investment liberalization on spatial concentration of economic activity," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 648-659.
    11. Adam Storeygard, 2016. "Farther on down the Road: Transport Costs, Trade and Urban Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 83(3), pages 1263-1295.
    12. Obaco, Moisés & Pontarollo, Nicola & Mendieta Muñoz, Rodrigo & Díaz-Sánchez, Juan Pablo, 2022. "On the association between housing deprivation and urban size: Evidence from South Asia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    13. Sameeh Alarabi & Fawaz Alasmari, 2023. "Challenges and Opportunities for Small Cities in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: A Study of Expert Perceptions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(8), pages 1-16, April.
    14. Robert M Anthony & Kristopher K Robison, 2018. "Forced urbanisation: A cross-national assessment of the effects of intranational political violence on a nation’s largest cities," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(13), pages 2923-2945, October.
    15. Karayalcin, Cem & Ulubasoglu, Mehmet Ali, 2009. "Romes without empires: urban concentration, political competition, and economic growth," Working Papers eco_2009_18, Deakin University, Department of Economics.
    16. Moomaw, Ronald L. & Alwosabi, Mohammed A., 2007. "Urban Primacy, Gigantism, and International Trade: Evidence from Asia and the Americas," Journal of Economic Integration, Center for Economic Integration, Sejong University, vol. 22, pages 439-460.
    17. Derbali Amani & Farhi Abdallah, 2022. "Demographic Analysis of the Makkah Province for the Purpose of Evaluating the Balance of the Urban System," Quaestiones Geographicae, Sciendo, vol. 41(2), pages 49-65, June.
    18. Matthew E. Kahn, 2017. "Will Climate Change Cause Enormous Social Costs for Poor Asian Cities?," Asian Development Review, MIT Press, vol. 34(2), pages 229-248, September.
    19. Andrés Rodríguez‐Pose & Jamie Griffiths, 2021. "Developing intermediate cities," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(3), pages 441-456, June.
    20. Ronald L. Moomaw & Mohammed A. Alwosabi, 2004. "An empirical analysis of competing explanations of urban primacy evidence from Asia and the Americas," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 38(1), pages 149-171, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:growch:v:52:y:2021:i:1:p:130-149. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0017-4815 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.