world class' urban space among foreign investors, and a growing wealthy professional and merchant

class (Berry and McGreal, 1999). At the same time, local and national governments face pressures to
adopt growth-oriented policies, and international aid and lending organizations seek to shape
frameworks for governance and economic management in an agenda largely designed to ensure that
countries repay their foreign debt. The result has been an agenda of decentralization and privatization in
development planning that has influenced governance in most countries, although the degree of its
influence has varied significantly depending on local institutional dynamics and beliefs about role of
government that are rooted in culture and history (Hill, 2004). These external influences have interacted
with urban political economies that are themselves formed through local histories of economic and
cultural change, and social group formation. While a deeper discussion of Metro Manila's political
economy is undertaken later in this paper, several categories of actors can be identified as key agents in
city building in many parts of Southeast Asia: (1) Local and national government play key roles in
providing the legal, policy, and regulatory frameworks in which development occurs. In the global era,
however, they increasingly experience incentives and pressures to liberalize their economies, to focus
modest state investment on infrastructure to support export-oriented production, and to engage the
private sector in achieving goals for economic growth. In some contexts the public sector's capacity to
plan has been fundamentally compromised by pressures for fiscal austerity, and governments have
embraced the view that urban development is best left to the private sector. (2) Private developers have
consequently come to be seen as the agents of `cutting edge' innovations in urban development.
Throughout the region these developers tend to be from ethnic Chinese business families, and are able
to tap into the vast liquid assets that are controlled by international networks of overseas Chinese, as
well as new sources of international finance (Olds, 2001). They have also built relationships with
government actors in recognition of their strong role in consolidating land and regulating development.
(3) These developers are lured into the property sector by the profits to be realized from an emerging
consumer class of `winners' in the globalization of these urban economies, and from multinational and
local corporate investors. The desires of the consumer class are shaped both by culture-specific
preferences and by their exposure to landscapes of consumption which they have witnessed elsewhere
through international travel and the media (Pinches, 1999). (4) Private developers look quite naturally to
foreign planners and architects for models of urbanism that are attractive, efficient, consumer oriented,
and therefore profitable. Yet, while their designs are influenced by planning models from the United
States and Europe, their central purpose is to distinguish urban megaprojects from the rest of the Urban
megaprojects and the privatization of planning in Southeast Asia 387 city in the quality and aesthetic
character of the spaces created in order to attract the consumer class and to maximize profit. Hence
their impact is less to `Westernize' urban form than it is to commodify the urban experience. What we
are observing, therefore, is not a simple drive to emulate the global cities of the West or to
`Americanize' urban landscapes. Rather, influential local actors, notably large developers and their
government partners, have sought to adapt selectively certain international models of urban planning
and design to the distinct context of Southeast Asian urbanization. What is driving this, I argue, is the
marginalization of the `public city' and the privatization of planning, which have occurred as new models
of urban governance have been embraced by political actors in response to opportunities and
constraints fostered by the emerging influence of global actors in urban political economies. I define the
`privatization of planning' as the transfer of power over and responsibility for the visioning of urban
futures and the exercise of social action for urban change from public to private sector actors. In Metro
Manila, planning has become privatized to a particularly marked extent, resulting in the emergence of
what I call `bypass-implant urbanism'. The Philippine political economy has been described as a system
of `booty capitalism', in which the state is essentially captured by elites who use policy to advance their
personal interests (Hutchcroft, 1998). In this context of unusually inert and deferential government,
private developers have been granted considerable power to reengineer cities to create new spaces for
production and consumption, and to facilitate the flow of people and capital between these spaces, by
`bypassing' the congested arteries of the `public city' and `implanting' new spaces for capital
accumulation that are designed for consumerism and export-oriented production. Specifically, a handful
of the largest developers have responded to the lack of a compelling public sector vision for Metro
Manila by conceiving of their own visions for urban redevelopment. These visions center on integrated
urban `megaprojects' that are developed in strategic locations and are intended both to capitalize on
trends in the city-region's development and to shape this development to the advantage of the
developer. Developers are also increasingly involved in building support infrastructure, including
community infrastructure and large-scale transportation systems such as light rail, regional rail, and toll
roads, to link these developments to the larger city and region (World Bank, 2004). Hence private sector
firms do not just develop real estate, but conceptualize and implement entire urban systems that are
overlaid onto the existing urban form. The form of public ^ private partnership that emerges from this
scenario is distinguished by the domination of private developers in all planning processes, from the
visioning of urban futures to the management of the urban environments that they create. This
contrasts with theories of urban growth regimes originating in the United States, which argue that
elected leaders must ``develop policies in concert with those who have access to capital'', by mobilizing
private actors around a coordinated vision of urban development, in order to realize policy and political
goals (Fainstein, 1995, page 35). In many cases, these roles are switched in Metro Manilaölarge
developers conceive of corporate visions, then convene public sector entities (a hodgepodge of local
governments, national agencies, and special-purpose agencies) to pursue their own objectives of urban
transformation for corporate profit. These characteristics are, arguably, unique to Metro Manila, where
the privatization of planning has been particularly pronounced. However, aspects of bypass ^ implant
urbanism can be found in many cities in Southeast Asia, and in other parts of the world. It may represent
the future of planning in parts of the world where government is breaking down under the strains of
foreign debt and crises of legitimacy. 388 G Shatkin Bypass ^ implant urbanism in Metro Manila The
growth of export-oriented industry in the Metro Manila region has led to dramatic spatial expansion,
with the industrialization and urbanization of the urban periphery. The five provinces surrounding Metro
Manila, referred to collectively as CALABARZON (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, and Quezon) have been
a focus of foreign direct investment (FDI) and government planning. With about 20% of the nation's
population, Metro Manila and CALABARZON combined represent more than one half the country's GDP,
and their share of manufacturing value added has remained steady at around two thirds during the past
two decades, despite predictions by many that it would face competition from other regions of the
Philippines (NSCB, 2003). This industrialization, and the more recent growth in business-process
outsourcing, have given rise to growth in the market for prime office space to house corporate
headquarters and producer-service firms. The city has also seen gradual movement of its middle-class
population from the city center to the fringe, although the market for high-end real estate is not
necessarily dominated by a managerial and professional elite as predicted in the global cities literature.
According to many of the developers interviewed for this project, much if not most of the demand for
new housing and consumer spaces comes from overseas Filipino workers, a diverse group that includes
maids in Hong Kong, engineers in the Middle East, nurses in North America, and others. Labor is the
country's largest export, and the Philippine government estimates that overseas workers remitted US $8
billion annually by 2002 (Bagasao, 2005; Ratha, 2005). The nature of bypass ^ implant urbanism as it has
emerged in Metro Manila can perhaps best be illustrated with reference to an example. In 2004 a
consortium of investors submitted an unsolicited bid to the Philippine government for a US $1.2 billion
project involving the development of a 22 km `LRT-7' light-rail line connecting a major intersection along
the northern portion of the city's inner-ring road, Epinafio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA), to the rapidly
growing city of San Jose del Monte in the neighboring province of Bulacan (Manila Bulletin 2 June 2005).
This was not, as one might expect, the seventh phase of the city's existing light-rail transit (LRT) systemö
indeed, only three phases have been built, and government plans called for six lines. The proposal was,
instead, an `unsolicited bid', conceived outside of the Philippine government's infrastructure plans. The
consortium included the country's largest mall developer, a construction company affiliated with one of
the country's largest conglomerates, a former secretary of finance in the national government, and
several foreign partners. The primary motivation for the investors was not the profits to be made from
the light rail itself but, rather, the right to develop a commercial and residential megaproject on
between 194 and 497 hectares of land adjacent to the line in rapidly urbanizing southern Bulacan
province. The plan met with enthusiasm from some sectors, but many expressed concerns about
overlap with government plans for the development of MRT-4, the fourth phase of light-rail
development in the city (Manila Bulletin 18 March 2005). In addition, projections that the project would
result in new sources of government revenue were questioned in light of the heavy subsidies required
when previous light-rail lines had not met their projected ridership and revenue