Academics, policymakers and residents bemoaned the untrammelled growth of the largest cities in each country. Remarkably, within this short period, the rapid economic growth experienced in East Asia eliminated many of those traditional problems of poverty and replaced them with problems of affluence, such as traffic jams and pollution. But now we are witnessing a slowdown in the heretofore fast-expanding Asian city. Economic growth has plunged and excessive investment in property created a bubble that inevitably burst. Nevertheless, the bubble bursting always comes as a surprise, as it did in Asia in 1997-98.
Asian cities are now likely to experience a continued period of pervasive decentralization.
Within large cities we will continue to see central districts progressively losing their overriding importance and more competing business and trading centres growing at their periphery. While that effect is already well-established in the United States and Latin America it is less marked in Asia or Europe. The move by many Asian nations to intensify information-technology businesses might speed the trend of decentralization, but its full impact is still unclear. However, decentralization will raise new problems of urban governance. First, as economic activity becomes more dispersed, there will be increasing demand for new infrastructure to connect the newly developing areas.