Management of the Urban Environment in Three Southeast Asian Coastal Metros: Bangkok, Manila and Jakarta

Abstract

Urban Environmental Management (UEM) has been receiving increasing attention since 1970 in both developed countries, where it has emerged as a subject of academic research and professional interest, and in developing countries, where it has become increasingly an area of donor concern as well. As a field, it is more like planning or engineering rather than geography, economics or sociology; and it represents an integrated view of environmental problems at city, metro and increasingly, regional level. Such problems are multi-sectoral (e.g., manufacturing, services, household, etc.), multi-system (e.g., water supply, sanitation, transport, etc.), multi-level (central, regional, metro, local and community) and multi-actor (e.g., government, NGO, CBO and private). They require solutions of enormous complexity. Three different research projects of graduate students in urban planning at the University of Cincinnati led by the author have studied the environmental problems of the three largest metros in Southeast Asia: Jakarta, Bangkok and Manila, and suggested how they could be ameliorated somewhat if not solved. This paper compares the three approaches of the students to formulate a 5-year plan of solutions to the environmental problems and issues they faced rather than to be told how to solve them. This expanded their analytical skills and taught them how to utilize the limited knowledge and resources available to come up with implementable solutions for the benefit of the population of Bangkok, Jakarta or Metro Manila. They learned that such skills are transferable to other projects, and they gained a greater appreciation of the skill set that they are developing as planners. Bringing the reality of development to the classroom and asking students to confront it gives them an appreciation of professional practice that the study of theory alone does not. Thus, this project has attempted not only to expand the education of planning graduate students, but also to provide a meaningful contribution to planning pedagogy .