The end is near...

I chose to post about Bangkok for a number of reasons. For one, this is the most interesting place i've ever been. Two, it is nothing like anything you can imagine in the United States, and the basic fundamentals of psychology and sociology do not apply there as they do here at home. It is foreign, it is bizarre, sometimes frightening, and almost too much fun. As far as selected topics go, i was shooting towards terrorism but ended up with a relatively random assortment of headlines.

Bangkok started out as a small port city in about 1350, now the official population is 7 million documented residents. The actual population is estimated to be 15 million, with 20 million commuters working in Bangkok that live outside of the cities official census boundaries. The rapid growth in population and economy of the city has cause some problems. Transportation is a key focus of the thai government and people. Bangkok has subways, roads (obviously), trains, skytrains, and numerous canals allowing for aquatic transit. A big push for the past century has been to accomodate those in transit, which is to this day a cause of stress and growth within the city. The Asian Financial Crisis of 1997, which was effectively a crash in the Asian market, left many Asian countries in, well, a financial crisis. For Bangkok, the early 90's was a time when the policymakers decided to solve the transportation proplem with an elevated railway (not the skytrain, which serves the central city, but an elevated train system that would connect suburbs, city and all those within its range). Construction began, and great pillars were erected to carry the steel tracks, but in 1997 the funding for the project ran dry, and no rails ever came. To this day construction has not resumed and all that is left of the project are the enormous pillars (imagine an elevated highway, but the pillars are easy twice the size, and with no road) seemingly erected for nothing. Thousands of dollars and man hours wasted on monoliths of concrete and steel.

The population increase in Bangkok throughout time has also led to the development of many surrounding urban areas, which we would refer to in American terms as "sub-urban" areas. These so called suburbs are just differently specified economic districts of the same conglomerate city. As Bangkok has grown, it has swallowed the surrounding cities and provinces. The outskirts of the official city trail off in numbers of skyscrapers and consist of only 4-8 story buildings. Outside of the urban area, residences are made of palm leaves and straw. Like we learned in class, suburbanization is a primarily first world phenomenon.

Thailand is an export based economy, with textiles, clothing, handguns, etc. being the primary economic contributor. Currently, the economy is booming, though it has slowed slightly from past years. Thailand's cheap labor and booming market have opened up the country to great foreign investment, which thusfar has benefited the country. Thailand, unlike some other Asian countries, has a free market economy which has proven positive for economic growth within the buisiness sector. The economy is also people based considering the amount of jobs in the manufacturing industry available. This does not hold true outside of the urban area of Bangkok, with the exception of rice farming, as there are few buisiness oppurtunities available.

At present, social unrest within the city is centered around the upcoming elections following last year's coup to overthrow the previous government. There is much anticipation at the outcome of these elections, and many fear that corruption will overtake the government. Officials in Thailand are notorious for buying votes, and running corrupt campaigns as well as sabotaging opposing parties.

I do not feel that urban planning was ever an issue in Bangkok. As far as i can tell from wandering around the streets, basements and skyrises, there is and never has been any sort of direction for growth and development. In American society we give the government so much control of the structure of our own lives that we would be apalled by the thought of letting growth take on the shape that it wants. In America, we turn to lawsuits for things like open manhole covers, broken sidewalks and bare electical cables running along 6 foot high cielings. In Bangkok, this is the way things are. The government tries to give people the infrastructure needed to make development possible, and leaves the rest in the hands of the buisinesses and citizens. This does not make for the most sensible living conditions, and probably undermines the general safety of the people as a whole, but it is an effective strategy for making money while providing the public with enough freedom to strike out on their own.

This is a city where mandatory military service can be waived for 200 american dollars, you can eat a gourmet meal at 3 am., and you can buy decent pot from an 80 year old woman on a motorcycle. One thing is for sure when you leave U.S. borders, nothing is as it seems, and everything you know and take for granted about western sociology and human interaction is false. I cant wait to go back...