ASIAN REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT
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What are the most challenging factors in establishing the megacities in the Southeast
Asian region? Please analyze the strengths and weaknesses of Singapore.
Southeast Asia is a very diverse region consisting of 11 countries, including Singapore. Among these countries, income and wealth are highly different in that two wealthiest countries is Singapore and Brunei, while the two poorest countries are East Timor and Cambodia. The performance of these countries in attaining the Millennium Development Goals has been challenging. Their successes in cutting off of poverty increased in the enrollment of the children and protecting the areas with biodiversity. Challenging factors in establishing the megacities may include; poor environmental conditions, deforestation, cohort survival and carbon dioxide emission. Therefore, it has become a major challenge in prioritizing other growth agendas because of the unfinished agendas such as reducing poverty and inequality, promoting peace and security and strengthening of the government and other institutions.
However, the attention that is placed in the megacities hides the fact that most of the Southeast Asia urban population lives in smaller cities and towns. According to the statistics made, the smaller cities and towns do not get the attention they deserve from the local government. There is poor development of the urban infrastructure and services in this small towns have made decentralization to become a burden to them because of the increased responsibilities that have been put on them as the population placed within there jurisdiction is demanding. However, the megacities show that they can generate rapid economic growth, but they have a negative impact which has challenged the growth of these megacities.
Urban poverty and inequality.
Due to the rapid urbanization in the megacities, poverty may transfer from the rural areas to the urban areas. As per the study, the extent of poverty has been great due to the rapid urbanization, but it differs from one region to another. According to the studies in the Southeast Asian region, the countries with the least urbanization of income poverty included; Philippines, Thailand, Viet Nam, Indonesia, Mongolia and the Lao people’s republic. The urban poverty can be traced back to when most of the population escaped poverty in the rural areas to the urban areas. This consequently led to rural poverty decline but led income inequality to become a major issue. Just like in rural areas, the urban poor individuals also lack essential services such as water, housing, education, health care and sanitation. Their capability to participate in the social and economic life, to seize opportunities and achieve high levels of productivity is hindered by their lack of basic services.
Ranging from household connections to the public standpipes, most of the residents in Southeast Asia have access to the improved water supply. However, this does not define exactly the quality and the quantity of the water since some sources may supply contaminated water due to wastes that enter the pipes and unsanitary conditions. Moreover, sometimes, the water supply may be limited; hence the women and girls may have to spend a lot of time in queues fetching water, thus not engaging in more productive works. Economic growth may contribute to a better condition in the urban housing sectors by increasing the effective demand for the supply of middle and lower-middle-income housing. Singapore has been the most successful compared to other countries in the Southeast Asia region, but its approach is hard to replicate because of Singapore’s unique circumstances.
Coping with environmental problems.
As a result of rapid urbanization and economic growth, widespread environmental degradation in southeast Asian urban areas, the common disposal methods in Southeast Asia of dumping solid waste has been a major problem, and the local governments are now facing huge problems in disposing of this waste in the urban areas. In poor southeast Asian countries, the informal sector street collectors separate waste through recycling and reuse. There has been extensive water pollution, that is:
In Lao people’s Democratic Republic, the pollutants from commercial and industrial areas, roads and from private properties are always drained into sewers which carry the industrial discharges and septic tank seepage. Moreover, in Viet Nam, major cities face major pollution from the industrial water waste, and in most of the cases, the canals serve as the deposit places for these wastes. In Indonesia, the rate of sewerage and sanitation is so poor. This is because most of the industries in Indonesia expand without regarding the environment; hence this has led to serious-environment degradation.
Therefore, to establish megacities in the Southeast Asian region, an increase in the prosperity of the local government on the waste collection will play a significant role in the growth of these cities. The southeast Asian region is said to affect the global environment as these countries contribute about 12 per cent of the greenhouse gas emissions as a result of deforestation. Most of these countries have been involved in deforestation, yet they are not able to control the waste products from their industries leading to high levels of environmental degradation. According to the research, Indonesia had the highest percentage of about 59%, followed by Thailand with 6%, the Philippines with about 4%, Viet Nam with 2% and a smaller percentage of pollution was from Singapore with about 1% of the pollution caused by the Southeast Asian countries.
Coping with the Urban economy.
Including Singapore, Metro Manila, Jakarta, Bangkok and others except some of Southeast Asia experience economic growth. To become megacities, some of these countries are better equipped, located in good areas and are well managed; however, they still face challenges in their economic growth. Since the economy in the world is constantly changing, therefore for the Southeast Asia cities to become megacities, they need to generate employment, reduce poverty, improve the quality of life and to finance the development of new structures. More so, these can also be done by these cities lowering the cost of labour and production to attract more foreign investments. To avoid the risk of falling into the middle-income trap and seize from growing economically, Southeast Asia cities should rely on attracting higher value-added manufacturing and services.
In southeast Asian cities, the challenges facing economic growth is mainly unemployment. The reason behind this is not clear, but it can be drawn to the loss of competitiveness in the labour-intensive exports. About 75% of the employment in the Southeast Asian cities entails own-account workers. Henceforth, the informal economy should remain widespread in the Southeast Asian cities for them to become megacities. However, creating attractive policies that can attract young and highly educated and skilled workers like in Singapore which will help to compensate the ageing population.
The Republic of Singapore is an independent island city-state located in the Southeast Asian Region. It is the second-most densely populated city globally but only beaten by Monaco, with approximately 5.3 million individuals crammed onto the island. Even though Singapore lacked natural resources, the national rapidly developed and became a highly developed country based on external trade. In Asia, Singapore is the only country that has an AAA dominant rating from all main evaluation organizations. Since 2013, the country has been continuously ranked as the most expensive city to live as a significant financial and shipping hub and identified as a tax haven (Woo, 2018). For instance, in social indicators, healthcare, housing with a home-ownership rate of 91%, personal safety, and quality of life have made the country be placed highly concerning these keys. Singaporeans enjoy the world’s longest life expectancies, lowest infant mortality rates, and fastest internet connection speeds globally.
Even though the country has a robust global status, it still has some flaws that back it from being ranked in the top 5 cities in the Global Cities Index. Out of a scale of 1 to 10, Singapore can be rated 8.5 according to the below strengths and weaknesses. Singapore’s strengths as a global city include its strong institutions and high quality of government officials and infrastructure. In the country, policymaking is an adequate and effective response to shocks and risks. Additionally, there is a competitive and highly friendly business environment (López & Wong, 2017, pp. 662). Its first place sees this in the Ease of Doing Business ranking since 2007, and since 2011-2012, the country was ranked the second in the Global Competitiveness Report.
Having a very healthy public fiscal stance is also one of its strengths. Government debt is only delivered to offer a point of reference rate and fascinate duties from the enforced chief pension fund, rather than to finance outlay. Issuance ensues are capitalized, and roughly 50% of net revenues can be utilized for expenditure. Thus, public net commercial possessions are enormous. More so, Singapore has a robust international creditor position. Its net international investment position and international reserves are huge (Ha, & Coghill, 2008, pp. 103). The threat of stability of expense disaster is unimportant, and the possibility for financial policymaking that aims at the interchange rate is enormous.
Despite these core strengths of Singapore, the country is still facing several domestic challenges emerging; thus, current growth rates are faltering. The country is facing three significant domestic challenges, which include population, competitiveness, and inequality. As the population ages, the country faces slower progress. As a result, the workforce deteriorates, and production declines. For many decades, fertility rates have been falling despite the best government efforts to incentivize child-rearing. The second challenge is inequality. The country is an unequal society, specifically in contrast with the more prosperous industrialized economies. The dissemination of the reimbursements of economic development remains slanted. Competitiveness is the third challenge faced by Singapore (Lim, 2010, pp. 123). This challenge is described as the capability to provide revenues on speculation that is greater to competitors. The country has continued to gather an imposing portion of global courses of extraneous direct investment. That portion was increasing until lately, subordinate its competitiveness as a speculation target and a suitable outlet to channel reserves into the instantaneous region, mainly the fast-growing Southeast Asia economies.
In conclusion, the Southeast Asian religion face many challenges in establishing of megacities. Therefore, priorities in planning and governance are needed to be diverse and make substantial changes for them to establish megacities. Since the megacities are recognized as the areas of global importance and therefore, the Southeast Asian region has to overcome the challenges of pollution, poverty and poor economy. Moreover, even though Singapore is among the richest countries in the Southeast Asian region, it still faces challenges of pollution, economic growth and poverty. Henceforth to overcome these challenges, these countries are required to economies and on the local government to promote their growth to megacities.