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The ‘bamboo network’ is used to conceptualise the investment flow into China from the Chinese diaspora, particularly those who resided in South-east Asia. However, global economic events have decimated the wealth of overseas Chinese whilst mainland Chinese businesses prospered, resulting in what is now reimagined as the ‘reverse bamboo network’. In Iskandar Malaysia (IM), which is a transnational economic region bordering Singapore, the foreign direct investment in housing (FDIH) from China has surpassed that of IM’s more prosperous neighbour Singapore, yet the interscalar interactions between market and actors in FDIH have yet to be unpacked. The aim of this paper is to examine how mainland Chinese developers operate within a bamboo network country by arguing that the similar socioculture helps in moderating institutionalised barriers, such as the unfamiliar legal framework and local personnel management. Framed by the ‘reverse bamboo network’ argument and underpinned by the sociocultural explanation, this paper explains the spatial and business transformations caused by FDIH from China. Data and information from desk research and fieldwork are used to construct macro-, meso- and micro-level dialectics in the paper. Ultimately, this paper argues that the sociocultural dialectic provides a complementary explanation of transnational shapers of the urban space in IM, and having political and cultural allies in the host country could tremendously improve business operations of international developers.

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Smart Cities have grown in prominence due to advancement in ICT and the new paradigm of sustainable city management and development. Whilst many authors have proposed guidelines and framework for Smart City implementation, less attention has been given to the assessment of Smart City performance. The mainstream Smart City assessment framework generally entails the quantitative assessment of factors, elements and initiatives categorised under the Smart City dimensions. However, this approach is problematic and impractical because it requires a large amount of different baseline data that is often at times unavailable due to various reasons. This paper describes an alternative framework for smart city assessment, one that is based on the modification of Giffmger’s to make it amenable to leaner data. The proposed assessment framework was adopted to assess the smart city performances of Seoul, Singapore, and Iskandar Malaysia which were then compared. With the use of the framework for the performance assessment, the city that has performed better than the others is able to be identified.