Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

As the market-based gentrification process is one of the key social phenomena in the global cities under the globalization context (Smith, 2002), it is interesting in examining Bangkok, Thailand, the top city for tourists, on the gentrification process and its impacts to the society. By adopting the Urban Political Economy theory and Lukes’ (2005) 3-dimension power as key frameworks in this study, this paper argues that the gentrification process in Bangkok is a market-based growth development that causes mixed results, including mass eviction and displacement, vertical segregation, and blurred horizontal segregation, which are influenced from the unresponsive governmental structures, uneven developmental policies, and cultural factors. The interactions between politics, policies, culture and, in particular, the BTS sky train development, can be seen as the uneven power relationships among people in Bangkok, which only those who haves such as the middle class, the rich, and tourists receive substantial benefits from the development. This case also reflects the notion of the class-based segregation resulted from the BTS sky train development and its economic aftermath, as well as the blurred horizontal segregation, which cannot be easily generalized as what have been argued from the concentration literature (Sampson, 2012; Sanchez-Jankowski, 1999).

References
Lukes, S. (2005). Power: a radical view. (3rd ed.). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Sampson, R.J. (2012). Great American city: Chicago and the enduring neighborhood effect. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Sanchez-Jankowski, M. (1999). The concentration of African-American poverty and the dispersal of the working class: an ethnographic study of three inner-city areas. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 23(4), 619 – 637.
Smith, N. (2002). New globalism, new urbanism: gentrification as global urban strategy. Antipode, 34(3), 427 – 450.