CURRENT PROJECTS and ACTIVITIES
Training
for Livable Cities (2004-2007) (Ford Foundation)
Focusing on the question of how Vietnam during its urban transition
and globalization processes can create the basis for livable cities
while pursuing economic advancement, the Globalization Research
Center (GRC) at UHM is running a four year (2004-2007) workshop
and training program funded by the Ford Foundation in Vietnam. The
program is designed to enhance skills among Vietnamese academics
and professionals engaged in and urban planning and policy in the
face of the magnitude of changes ahead in Vietnam. The theme of
Livable Cities includes three major dimensions: (a) personal well-being
and livelihood, (b) environmental well-being, and (c) community
and civic life. These topics are addressed from a number of perspectives,
including: urban planning, demography and population studies, environment
and poverty, methods of urban data analysis, participatory urban
design, and policy alternatives.
The annual program has three main components. The first is a one-month
intensive training in Honolulu that is co-hosted by GRC and the
East-West Center. Approximately 8 participants from Vietnam join
with 10-15 participants from other Asian countries to receive lectures
by a number of invited experts and develop their own research project
proposals. More and detailed information on the Summer Seminar can
be found at the
EWC webpage. The second activity is a symposium held in Vietnam
that is organized by previous Summer Seminar participants and is
open to both Vietnamese and International planners and scholars.
The third activity is a pilot research project on a key dimension
of livable cities in Vietnam initiated and run by selected participants
from the Summer Seminar.
Event in 2004
The short course on Urban and Regional Planning consisted of two
weeks of special lectures, seminars, and tutorials at the University
of Hawaii and the East-West Center and field visits to selected
sites in Honolulu. Further information can be found HERE
Events in 2005
• Summer Seminar. From 31 May to 30 June 22 participants from
7 countries gathered in Honolulu for a one-month seminar on Livable
Cities in Pacific Asia: Research Methods for Policy Analysis. Quantitative
and qualitative analysis, action-oriented and participatory research
methods were reviewed. Participants presented research projects
on livable cities from their respective countries. The course concluded
with each participant drafting a proposal for future research.
• Symposia on Livable Cities. In July 2 symposia on “The
Urban Transition and the Future of City Life in Vietnam –
The Question of Public and Civic Space” were held in Vietnam.
The Hanoi Symposium (27-28 July) was hosted by Urban-Rural Solutions,
and the Ho Chi Minh City Symposium (2-3 August) was hosted by the
Institute of Economic Research of HCMC. Each brought together more
than 50 planners, officials and scholars to present research, projects
and ideas about public space in Vietnam’s cities.
Events
in 2006
• International Workshop on Livable City – Research
& Development Experience Exchange among Asia Pacific Countries.
Hosted by the Thailand Environment Institute (TEI) and the Chulalongkorn
University Social Research Center (CUSRI). The event brought together
more than 80 participants to discuss livable cities. A field trip
to Muang Klang, a coastal town in Thailand that was awarded the
most livable city award for small cities by TEI, followed the conference
to witness best practices and learn from the Mayor and citizens
of the city. Pictures of the event activities can be found in HERE
• Summer Seminar. Forthcoming June 2006
• Symposium on Livable Cities: Forthcoming, HCMC, August 2006
• Research on community spaces in Hanoi: Undertaken by Urban-Rural
Solutions, Hanoi, focusing on two cases: slums and community space,
and children and community space.
Summer Seminar Program [2004 - 2006]
The
Globalization Research Center, in collaboration with the East-West
Center, hosts summer seminar and workshops on Livable Cities in
Pacific Asia. In the decades ahead, a substantial share of global
population growth will take place in urban centers of Pacific (East
and Southeast) Asia. Every year, an average of 22 million people
in the region are born in, move to, or have their homes incorporated
into cities. This urban transition of Pacific Asia societies is
an uneven process focusing on a limited number of mega-urban regions.
Several are approaching 20 million in population size. Given the
number of people who already are and will be living in these city
regions, enhancing the quality of life in them is a pressing policy
concern. These month-long workshops focus on research methods for
policy analysis to improve life in the mega-urban regions of Pacific
Asia. They bring together the human-welfare dimensions of population
studies and urban policy. Perspectives from related fields, such
as environmental management, development studies, and the social
and political dynamics of governance, will offer insights into key
urban policy and planning issues. Globalization processes, including
international migration and foreign investment, will also be assessed
in terms of urban impacts and policies. Further information on the
first year’s course on the Urban Transition and Public Space
in Pacific Asia [2004] can be found HERE.
Historical
Preservation, Responsible Tourism and Urban Development in Xi’an,
China [2005-2006]
China is experiencing unprecedented rates of economic growth and
urbanization, and the impact reaches out to even the remotest regions
of the country. In accordance with the national planning strategy
to divert the focus from coastal cities and further develop the
Western Regions, Xi’an, the capital of Shaanxi province and
also a leading city in the northwest part of China, strives to achieve
a higher level of economic prosperity. As part of the endeavor,
the local government acknowledges a promising potential in accelerating
the tourism industry, taking full advantage of its rich historic
resources. Having served as the capital for 13 dynasties lasting
more than a thousand years, the whole city is a Cultural
Museum.
GRC is taking the initiative in a new project on Xi’an
as a livable city, with a geographical focus on the imperial
palace site from the Han Dynasty (206 B.C– 8 A.D) where the
remaining walls and ruins from the ancient dynasty cover a vast
area of 36 km2. In partnership with the Northwest University
(Xibei Daxue) Center for Preservation of Historic Heritages in Xi’an
and the National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Building and
Planning in Taipei, the project is committed to developing sound
planning strategies for this extraordinary site. It calls for considerable
finesse as the dynamics of urbanization, preservation and local
living culture conflict and seem to overwhelm one another. Strategic
thinking toward place-making can be a useful framework, minimizing
degrading effects of place-breaking, its evil twin. Going beyond
the immediate condition of the site, a critical analysis of the
social and cultural context of the broader region can provide a
solid ground to reach practical suggestions for the local development
policy.
The local government regards UNESCO World Heritage designation as
a strong attraction for promoting the site, and our project also
engages in assisting the application process. However, with the
growing awareness upon the undesirable impacts of World Heritage
designation that could bring damage to the sites as the number of
visitors sharply increases, the principles of Responsible Tourism
are incorporated as an overarching theme that can better ensure
positive outcomes from global tourism development.
In January 2006, one-week seminar was held between UH and NTU with
intensive academic exchanges and site visits in Honolulu. Faculty
from Department of Urban and Regional Planning and School of Tourism
Industry Management also joined the seminar, enhancing the understanding
of the project and further guiding the direction. In March 2006,
a follow-up seminar is scheduled in both Taipei and Xi’an.
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| Layout of palaces
in project site |
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participants
from NTU and UH |
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Mega-Projects and Livable Cities [2004-2005]
In association with the National University of Singapore, this project focuses on the impacts of urban mega-projects on the livability of cities, particularly with regard to community and public life in Pacific Asia. The age of mega-projects aimed at capturing the core of the metropolis emerged in Pacific Asia in the mid-1980s with the historical coincidence of several factors: the beginning of the bubble economy in Japan; the globalization of retail and franchise capital; the opening of Pacific Asia banking systems to global finance; and the spread of the idea of 'world cities' as a symbol of national status and economic power. By the 1990s the central areas of all major cities were experiencing massive restructuring that was principally aimed at creating favorable global linkages. Massive suburban new towns and housing estates came with the construction boom as well. Neoliberal reforms that opened nations and cities further to global transactions after the 1997 have had the effect of stimulating another new era of intercity competition through mega-projects.
The
first meeting of this project will be held in Singapore in December
2004 as part of the RC21 conference. Researchers from 12
countries will gather to discuss findings from case studies on the
relationships between mega-projects and livable cities.
Globalization
and Civic Space: Cities, Community Life and the Public Sphere - A Dialogic Conference [August 2005]
The rise of civil society in community and public life is widely observed throughout the world. The central proposition of the proposed research and dialogic conference is that to realize the promises of an active society engaged in community and public life, spaces of tolerance and inclusion must be available for people to gather, build a sense of shared bonds and social networks, and engage in debate and dialogue in the public sphere of governance. Such "civic spaces" can foster self-respect, public skills, and the value of cooperation. Defined as those spaces in which people of different origins and walks of life can co-mingle without overt control by government, commercial or other private interests, or de facto dominance of one group over another, civic spaces are fundamental to an engaged society with a public imagination.
As the world enters its first urban century with more than half of its population living in cities, the production and sustenance of such spaces for the fruition of civic culture as part of the public realm of governance also increases in importance. This need is particularly manifest, but certainly not limited to, societies in Pacific (East and Southeast) Asia, which, over the past three decades, have been experiencing among the most rapid and condensed processes of urbanization in world history. While globalization brings to this region promises of wider access to information that has become crucial in more localized grass-roots social mobilization toward democratic forms of government, it also brings powerful forces that are changing the built environment of cities toward more commercialized, commodified relations that can undermine the provision and integrity of civic spaces. This project seeks to better understand these outcomes in terms of the fruition of civil society and good governance as seen through the prisms of civic spaces.
In
August 2005 researchers from 12 countries will be brought together
for a Dialogic Conference on civic space. This conference is intended
to lead to scholarly publications and policy advocacy.
Global Householding [2004-2005]
The Global Householding project arises from the observation that the formation of households - a social process common to all societies in the world - is increasingly reliant on international transactions and movement of people. Demographic transitions toward below replacement fertility in high income countries, implicit choices made by women and men to develop careers instead of marrying or having children, high costs of living in home countries after retirement, and many other factors are leading to household formation transcending the boundaries of nation-states. This occurs at all life cycle stages, as exemplified by rising levels of international adoption of children, sending of 'parachute kids' to establish roots in new (higher income) countries for subsequent family migration, marriages brokered by 'mail order' bride agencies, the demand for foreign household helpers as nannies, and the movement of retired couples from higher to lower income countries as a strategy to stretch fixed incomes. The importance of global householding is manifested by recent data showing that international migrant remittances to households in their home countries totaled $82 billion in 2002 - a sum far greater than the $56 billion total distributed through foreign aid in same year.
The research takes a neutral stand on the merits of household globalization, seeing this as a universal social desire and allowing for felicitous as well as undesirable outcomes. By framing the research as global householding, the project acts as an umbrella for a number of sub-themes, such as migration for marriage or the migration of seniors and provision of health services for them in destination countries, each of which can be explored and brought together for fuller understandings of the globalization of household formation. In explicitly raising issues of immigration procedures and protection of human rights, a major dimension of all research is the governance of migration and migrant household welfare in both migrant sending and receiving countries.
The initial focus of this research will be on international marriages in Pacific Asia, with specific attention to Vietnamese women migrating for marriage to men in Taiwan, Singapore, and Japan.
Global Cities, Migration and Governance [2004-2005]
Initiated with the Globalization Research Network, the project researches the dynamics of population movement to large urban regions of the world from the perspective of governance and policy. The research looks at how various governance institutions attempt to regulate the movement and rights of people coming to these urban agglomerations. Research projects are undertaken at the city level in selected countries to assess how attempts at regulating migration impact on various migrant groups, including forced labor and trafficking as well as contract labor and the unsponsored movement of unskilled workers.
Water, Cities and Urban Poverty [2004-2005]
This project focuses on low-income communities in selected Pacific Asia cities by asking three questions: (1) what are the issues in access to clean water to these communities; (2) how are poor people obtaining water; and (3) what can government, NGOs and private sector providers do to ensure all households have access to water. It also seeks to expand poverty analysis now focused on income from employment to include environmental resources as basic needs.
Responsible Tourism [2004-2006]
In its varied forms global tourism has experienced phenomenal expansion over the past several decades to become the world's largest industry, employing nearly 10 percent of the world's labor force and acting as an economic base for local development in even remote regions (WTO 2003). The expected benefits of global tourism are widely pursued by prospective host regions throughout the world. At the same time, disbenefits have also appeared that undermine the potential for linking economic growth through tourism to local prosperity and sustainability. Among the concerns are those for better stewardship of the environment, sustenance of authentic cultural practices, greater localization of economic multiplier effects, broader local distribution of economic benefits, and support of local systems of governance over these issues.
In light of the need to improve the local outcomes of tourism activities, the idea of "responsible tourism" has gained momentum among government, non-government and private sector institutions operating in many regions of the world. The precepts for responsible tourism include: minimizing negative economic, environmental, and social impacts; generating greater economic benefits for local people including poverty reduction; enhancing the well-being of host communities; involving local communities in culturally sensitive decisions about tourism initiatives and activities; contributing to the conservation of natural and cultural heritage as part of sustaining the world's diversity.
GRC research on responsible tourism covers both policy frameworks and evaluation of actual practices. Initial research reconnaissance has focused on the 'Emerald Triangle' covering areas of Northeast Thailand, Laos and Cambodia.
Local Perspectives on the Global Water Agenda
This project assesses local experiences in policies and practices, both public and private, that have been developed to manage water resources in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam. The research seeks to inform existing international agendas that incorporate innovations such as integrated water resource management (IWRM) and private sector participation (PSP). Our case study approach examines the cooperative efforts as well as challenges faced by low-asset households in their use of water as both a resource for productive activity and as a basic good for household consumption. We are particularly interested in areas of social and economic change associated with rapid urbanization, such as in urban fringe of Ho Chi Minh City and in the inter-urban corridor between Ho Chi Minh City and Can Tho. Included in the assessment are changes associated with the intensification of agriculture/aquaculture to serve the urban and global markets, where conflicts between these uses of water require adaptive institutional practices to overcome.
Case study issues and communities will therefore be selected that meet the following criteria:
- low income and/or low-asset
- dynamic peri-urban and/or rural and urban corridor
- water is a factor in both livelihood (production) and sanitation (consumption)
A key question is: to what extent are patterns of access to water and its uses the result of natural constraints, socio-economic development, and political relations operating at different scales, from the local to regional, and from national to global?
Research methods will include: Geographical Information Systems; social surveys; and ethnographic methods.
Research Proposal Draft August 2004
Mega-urban Region (MUR) Dynamics [2004]
This research deals principally with the 1990-2000 period of change in Pacific Asia cities to reveal the spatial and demographic dynamics of what are now among the largest urban agglomerations in the world. It brings together an analysis of demographic changes and transitions with an analysis of processes of globalization and local linkages to explain contemporary mega-urban region formation and change in a select number of cities: Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City, Jakarta, Manila, Shanghai and Taipei.
Livable Cities in Southeast Asia [2003-2004]
This project is in conjunction with the Mega-urban Region (MUR) Dynamics project. Livability indicators are compiled for three major themes - environmental quality, personal well-being, and lifeworlds - and compared for the 1990-2000 period across four Southeast Asia cities: Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City, Jakarta, and Manila. Environment covers air, water and land. Personal well-being is concerned with health, education and livelihood issues related to poverty. Lifeworlds is concerned with associational life, culture and the vitality of civil society. Governance is included as a cross-cutting issue.
Globalization, the City and Civic Space [2002-2004]
A continuing project, this research focuses on the rise of civil society in Pacific Asia as it is expressed in cooperation and contestations over urban space. The focus of case studies in is on 'civic spaces' that are inclusive and allow people to form associational life at arms distance from overt control by either the state or private enterprise. The cases include: festivals in Seoul, Korea; peri-urban village transformations in Quanzhou, China; Community space and grassroots organizations in Shanghai, China; public spaces in ancient cities of China; the Royal Grounds in Bangkok, Thailand; the National Mosque in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; sidewalks of Hanoi, Vietnam; civic culture, the state and the urban landscape in Singapore; cybercivic space through the internet in Indonesia, and insurgent civic spaces emerging around meetings of global governance bodies.
Human
Slavery/Trafficking Project
As
of March 1, 2006, the Hawaii Anti-trafficking Taskforce project
will be directed by the Department of the Attorney General, State
of Hawaii. All inquiries should be directed to:
Ms.
Julie Okamoto: e-mail: julie.y.okamoto@hawaii.gov
Tel: 808.587.7442/fax: 808.586.l373
For more details please visit: Trafficking Home Page
Rural Urban Partnership Program (RUPP) in Nepal [May-June 2004]
Md. Saiful Momen, a Master of Urban and Regional Planning student at University of Hawaii, was offered a GRC grant to do a summer internship at the Rural Urban Partnership Program (RUPP) in Nepal. During the six-week internship, he studied the economic and spatial linkages of the RUPP-sponsored small enterprises in and around the municipality of Butwal. MORE ...
Globalization Research Network
In addition to these activities, The University of Hawaii is a member of the Globalization Research Network (GRN) with three other U.S. universities, each responsible for developing inquiry in a designated area of the world. The University of South Florida is responsible for the Caribbean and Latin America, George Washington University for Europe and West Asia, UCLA for Africa, and the University of Hawaii, Manoa for Asia and Pacific.
The GRN partners bring together a broad array of complementary skills, experience and capabilities. Each university is creating a globalization center that will develop its own projects reflecting the strengths of that campus, while collaborating on the projects of other members where appropriate. As a consortium, the GRN blends the collective resources of the members in the service of commonly held goals.
PAST PROJECTS and ACTIVITIES
Living in a Global World is a pre-recorded and edited television series, one hour long, produced by the Globalization Research Center. Living in a Global World tries to capture some of the ongoing debates about globalization. It is built around interviews with the most interesting globalization commentators, scholars, critics, apologists - whoever we believe can contribute to the debate on the processes of globalization.
The Globalization Atlas and Portal Project (GAPP) researches and presents data on the phenomena of globalization. Conducted at both the national and international levels, the research is organized in topic clusters ranging from popular culture to climate change to the movement of peoples. The content is presented in a visually striking and accessible way, featuring expert commentary that reflects the differing views on the meaning of the globalization phenomena.
The Globalization Research Center Curriculum Project (GRCCP) creates high-school level multimedia, web-based curricula focused on globalization. Its rationale is that the phenomenon of globalization is developing more rapidly than the capacity of most schools to address it, given their limited resources. The GRCCP curricula are modular, organized for self-paced study, and cover a wide range of globalization dynamics and impacts. The curricula will be offered to schools and are developed with student input and in partnership with various schools, public and private, in Hawaii and the continental U.S.
The GRC Health Projects, a newly formulated signature project, researches the dynamics and effects of globalization on health. The Project investigates the impact of globalization on the most vulnerable populations in Asia and the Pacific. As it develops, the Project will focus on country-specific responses to globalization and evaluate the viability of these strategies elsewhere in the region.
PAST CONFERENCES
RESEARCH
