The Great Urban Transition (eBook)

This monograph examines the (sub)urbanization process of seven transitional economies in Southeast, East, and North Asia (SENA), i.e., Siberia of Russia in North Asia, China and Mongolia in East Asia, and Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, and Vietnam in Southeast Asia.

In ten chapters, great urban transformation occurred in SENA is discussed, as well as the transitional period which aggravated urban environments in SENA cities and how 'institutional shift,' enabled by movements of urban residents and transitional urban governance, may facilitate the process and improve the urban environmental condition. 

This book includes land cover and land use data derived from satellite images over the past thirty years and intensive field research in more than thirty cities exploring the rise of these great cities and their environmental challenges.

Unlike in western countries, the current urbanization process in Asian transitional economies is a hybrid product of market logic and state legacy and intervention, with these influences sometimes conflicting and at other times enhancing each other, under intensified globalization.

This book is of interest to researchers and students interested in landscape, urban studies, environment studies in particularly Asia, as well as planners and policy makers.

Peilei Fan, Ph.D., is a professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the School of Planning, Design, and Construction at Michigan State University. She also holds a joint research appointment at the Center for Global Change and Earth Observations and is an adjunct faculty member of the Geography Department at MSU. Fan has a Ph.D. in Economic Development and an MS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, both from MIT. She has served as a consultant/economist for the United Nations University -World Institute of Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) and the Asian Development Bank. Fan's research focuses on urban environment and sustainability, public health, innovation and economic development, and planning and policy. Her research projects have been funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). Fan is the secretary general of the International Association of Landscape Ecology (2019-2024). She also serves the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP) as a member of the Finance & Investment Committee and as the Track Co-Chair for Food Systems (Track 9), Community Health and Safety. Fan is an editorial board member for the journal 'Landscape and Urban Planning.' She was a Core Fulbright US Scholar for 2017-2018 (Taipei and Shanghai) and a Public Intellectuals Program Fellow of the National Committee on US-China Relations (2019-20). Fan has published more than 70 peer-reviewed articles and been guest (co)editors for special issues of four academic journals. She served on the review panels for NASA, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and Fulbright, and been an ad-hoc reviewer for NSF and multiple international organizations.