Sustainability and urban sprawl: Alternative scenarios for a Bangkok superblock

Abstract

How do we plan/design cities towards a more sustainable future? This paper illustrates application of an alternative design scenario on a Bangkok 'superblock', identified as Bangkok's unit of lateral expansion. Through the process, Bangkok's suburbanization pattern is analyzed and, based on this growth-pattern, a probable future scenario of unmediated change is generated. A 'generic' model of the sustainable city is synthesized from the literature and is then applied to and adapted for Bangkok to generate a 'mediated change' and both are then compared. The 'mediated change' scenario aims to 'retrofit' Bangkok's (sub)urbanization patterns-plotting paths towards 'sustainability' specific to Bangkok's socioeconomic context. In the tradition of alternative design visions of the future as major contributions to knowledge, this process provides a heuristic device to inform and assist practitioners, decision makers and stakeholders in navigating, engaging with and applying the metanarrative of sustainability at a local level.

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