The University and East Asian Cities: The Variegated Origins of Urban Universities in Colonial Seoul and Singapore

This article explores and compares the development of colonial urban universities in Seoul and Singapore for the purpose of examining the multifaceted and scaled socio-political relationships in colonial cities. The colonial universities were a contested space where different interests crossed. The pattern of these intersections was different because Seoul and Singapore experienced different colonial powers—Japan and Britain, respectively. In this regard, this article focuses on how different colonial experiences affected universities as well as urban environments in Seoul and Singapore. The findings show that the university campus development trends of colonial universities in Seoul and Singapore are important to understand the urbanization processes of both cities. The varied colonial interests, global and local, shaped universities and their surrounding urban environments in different ways. Understanding these differences helps us understand the development trajectory of East Asian urbanization.

Urban Developmentalism in East Asia: Geopolitical Economies, Spaces of Exception, and Networks of Expertise

This special issue highlights an exciting range of contemporary, interdisciplinary research into spatial forms, political economic processes, and planning policies that have animated East Asian urbanization. To help situate this research, this introductory article argues that the urban as form, process, and imaginary has often been absent from research on East Asian developmentalism; likewise, the influence of developmentalism on East Asian urbanization has remained under-examined in urban research. To rectify this issue, we propose a concept of urban developmentalism that is useful for highlighting the nature of the urban as a site of and for developmentalist intervention in East Asia. We then outline the contribution made by the articles in this special issue to three key themes that we feel are germane for the study of urban developmentalism across varied contexts: geopolitical economies, spaces of exception, and networks of expertise.