What are Urban Challenges?

Urban challenges increase with the increase in urbanization, such as the availability of affordable housing.

This occurs due to the rapid increases in urban population and results in inequalities in access to services and amenities.

It is a bigger challenge for the developing economies as they don’t have enough resources to tackle it.

Urban Challenges in South-East Asia – The Case Study

South-East Asia is considered a distinct subregion of Asia, but there is a wide diversity within the region.

It includes a very populous country (Indonesia) and a country with a small population (Brunei Darussalam).

An economically highly developed country (Singapore), and least developed countries (Cambodia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic and Myanmar).

What binds the countries of South-East Asia from the perspective of this paper is that all countries (a) experience urbanization with economic growth and (b) are part of a subregional framework, the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Urbanization with economic growth means that the countries have the financial resources to introduce inclusive policies whereby the benefits of economic growth are shared among the urban and rural populations.

To achieve broad-based development, even though imbalances and inequalities may result from its economic policies.

Moreover, continued growth is not guaranteed, as the economies must remain competitive in a global economy.

This requires constant productivity improvements or falls into the (lower)-middle-income trap.

Also read: Emerging urbanization trends: The case of Karachi