"Rural -Urban Relations in the Mega-Urban Regions of East Asia. Implications for the Role of Penang Conurbation in the Development of the Koridor Utara." by Professor Terry Mc Gee

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By Daniel Lee and Richard Ho

“For the first time in global history, the world will have the majority of its population living in urban places,” said Professor Emeritus Terry McGee of the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. “The increasing economic integration of the world (globalisation) is creating a greater potential for economic volatility and raising challenges for the sustainability of existing urban forms,” he warned at a talk held at Wawasan Open University on the 19 November.

According to a UN-Habitat (2005) report:

Asia now holds 61% of global population and its share of the global urban population has risen from 9% in 1920 to 48% in 200. It is further expected to rise to 53% by 2030. Asia currently holds more than half of the world’s cities, with more than 10 million people inhabitants and that figure is rapidly rising.  

It is expected that, by 2020, two-thirds of the entire Association of East Asian States (ASEAN) urban population will live in only five Mega-Urban-Regions (MURs): the Bangkok-centred MUR (30 million); the Kuala Lumpur–Klang MUR (6 million); the Singapore Triangle (10 million); the Java MUR (100 million); and the Manila MUR (30 million).

Southeast Asian MURs will be relatively small, compared to those in East Asia, such as the Tokyo–Osaka–Kyoto–Kobe–Nagoya MUR (60 million), the Hong Kong–Shenzen–Guangdong MUR (120 million) and the Greater Shanghai MUR (83 million).

With the Shanghai MUR extending over 6340 square kilometres and the Beijing MUR covering an area of 16,870 square kilometres, East Asian MURs are introducing urban issues on geographic scales never before experienced.

The accelerated pace of urban transition of cities into conurbations or metropolises into mega-urban regions by local and regional actions, including intercity competition, have compelled governments to devote greater resources and tune policies to create a built environment conducive to global investment. However, urbanisation has wrought about a vital contradicting issue, the rural and urban.  

In Malaysia, the situation is no different. Trends show that prior to independence, 30% of Malaysians lived in cities, post-independence saw the figure increase to 50%, and by 2020 – 2030, 70% of Malaysians will be urbanised. “Malays will form the majority population in urban centres as the hollowing out of the traditional Malay rural areas will increase,” said McGee.  

The paradigm of change involving a movement from a rural to urban continuum will entail dramatic changes in local and regional rural-urban relations. “These realities together with the restructuring of economic, social and political activities will necessitate the rethinking of historically embedded concepts of the urban and rural because urban activities defined as non-agricultural activities are spreading into areas that have previously been defined as rural.”

“The assumption that increased integration into the global economy is a required necessity for development has compelled researchers and policy makers to favour development strategies that emphasised on structural economic shifts to industrial and service sector activities.” This has left government rhetoric and support for rural development and food security nothing but hot air. “The urban focus is nothing new; the conventional economic wisdom that investment in industry and services yields higher returns than agriculture is a powerful mantra.”  

The “dilemma of developmental processes” of MURs lies in the division between two developmental perspectives – the “developmentalist” approach emphasises developed urban regions as the engines of growth, while the “liveability & resilience” perspective places more importance on inclusiveness, which would see the incorporation of both rural and urban regions into a shared framework.

The question remains as to whether there exists a “merging point” for these two divergent perspectives in the 21st century. “In 2000, China’s seven MURs produced 45% of the nation’s GDP, but at what socio-environmental cost? As China increasingly develops and intrudes on more agriculturally fertile lands, it will certainly face impending food security issues when climate change and the energy crisis balloons global food prices.”

McGee argued that the growth of urban activities in MURs is causing major changes in rural activities in the adjacent rural zones. Economists have tended to view these changes (in the rural regions) positively, noting increased (agricultural) revenues in formerly “backward” areas despite the emergence of other challenges and less positive issues linked to climate change, heightened social tensions and growing economic volatility.

“A rural-urban synthesis approach should utilise ideas of ‘synergistic capital’,” said McGee. These proposals would also hinge on the larger question – how does a developing economy frame relevant policies that support the resilience of rural-based activities in MURS, while still contributing to the consolidation of urban economic development?

The “population balloons” on the map of Asia reflect a trend that can be described as a process of “mega urbanisation” – such rapid and expansive urbanisation is part of the landscape and reality of the East Asian region in the 21st century.  

But what is mega urbanisation? Basically, it describes a process of outward growth starting from a central urban node, which over time becomes increasingly expansive and accelerated, incorporating the effects of development in technology, vehicular efficiency and infrastructural framework.

The process pulls peripheral zones and cities into the integral framework, such as can be seen in Ayuthaya being incorporated into a greater Bangkok area grid; the integration actually yields benefits through its synthesis of activities and resources from the rural and urban domains.

Another expression of this mega urbanisation trend is seen in the rise of “urban corridors” – linked regions or clusters of large cities into a larger mega urban sphere, such as the Tokyo-Osaka corridor.

However, despite these developments, pockets of thriving intra-corridor agrarian activities exist in the intermediate zones as proof that urbanisation does not necessarily spell the demise of activities traditionally linked to the rural regions. These corridors linking mega cities, but which incorporate pockets/spheres of agrarian activities, could be a good example of a platform where urban and rural activities are synthesised into a common framework.

This process describes many examples of East Asian mega urbanization, which has shown a “spreading out” effect that cuts into formerly remote and rural zones at an accelerated pace which has significant impacts on eco-systems, pollution, waste and land-use. Cities are also fiscal sinks that take a large share of national fiscal resources and require land, water and people from rural areas.  

Another common feature has been MURS that centre on delta areas – the traditional “food basket” regions of the developing Asian economies where water control, irrigation and hydraulic systems have been in place for areas with very high population densities. This “core zone” of interest in East Asia houses a population of 1.2 billion, in an area that may have formerly been grain-cultivating societies, but which recently has experienced an explosion of non-agricultural MURS-type activities.

Mega urbanisation thus brings deep structural changes that modify the economy and resources of the societies affected by the process such as massive loss of agricultural lands to urban-based activities, and changes effected in diet and lifestyle of the people living in these areas.  

In the pockets of agriculture-based activities that have survived, product diversification within the agrarian sector has shifted the emphasis away from grain production towards a wider range of other food and commercial crops. Lifestyle changes bring about a heavier dependence on processed foods; supermarkets have replaced the traditional wet markets and food companies face increasing pressure from demands for more stringent quality control and increasing capital intensity (CAFOs), which in turn effect structural changes in agricultural production and processes. “A child may one day ask, ‘Where does meat and milk come from, mother?’ After all, the child is unwittingly exposed to pre-packaged meat and bottled milk from supermarkets,” quipped McGee. Local indigenous crops and food will also be at risk to more commercially viable forms flooding the market.  

It is therefore important to develop policies that recognize the importance of rural activities in MURs. “As the growth of MURs occur in complex ecosystems and areas of mixed land-use with high density. It needs policy response of a similar scale at the MUR level, provincial collaboration and city and county collaboration to conserve eco-systems. Crucially, because human and environment relations vary so much at the regional (EMR) and local levels, there is a need to place increasing emphasis upon action at local levels.  

“The top-down level of approach no longer applies in the 21st century.”

He added, “In tandem with economic development, there is a dire need for eco-governance and a strong desire to develop ‘synergistic capital’, which involves utilising the different types and expressions of capital, such as economic, cognitive, cultural, symbolic, institutional, social, physical and human capital. Eco-capital as the capacity of society to preserve eco-systems to face the challenges of development and environmental change must also be included,” he counselled.  

Why should it be done?

“It is undeniable that we have to accept the inevitability of the urbanisation process,” said McGee. “Therefore it is essential to preserve agriculture as a key component in the rural-urban synthesis process because it is an important part of the ecosystem, vital for food security in the loom of climate change and energy crisis that will affect global food prices, and can be developed for tourism and recreational purposes in the ‘post-industrial’ landscape.”

As changes are effected, agriculture can be tuned to meet the tide of new urban demand trends, even as farmer associations/cooperatives and other support measures like subsidies, credit and infrastructure are created and strengthened through a mix of organic methods and capital systems of agriculture.  

Therefore there needs to be a strengthening of marketing of local food in urban centres at the local level by, for example, limiting the number of supermarkets and their proximity to wet markets and preserving best agricultural land by turning them into “agricultural reservations”. Utilising the concept of “eco-capital” and synergetic capital as a basic element of all policies for rural-urban synthesis such as placing “green belts” based upon division of rural and urban co-existence.  

“With respect to Malaysia’s Northern Corridor, the region has great potential and Penang is well positioned to play through its infrastructural and logistics strengths by exporting agricultural produce via its linkages and proximity to these neighbouring states,” opined McGee.

However, he cautioned, “We must bear in mind that the rural areas of Kedah and Perlis are experiencing an emptying of rural Malay life. Though the federal proposal to turn the region to become the food basket of Malaysia is welcomed, it will not happen or be successful unless people start thinking of rural-urban relations, synergizing capital and utilise a bottoms-up approach to planning.”