“Look East!”: the relevance of Japanese Urban transport planning and technology to Southeast Asian cities

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Abstract
The Japanese thrust into urban transport planning and technology in Southeast Asia is evident when the location of land use‐transport plans undertaken by her consultants are mapped. An examination of the contents of these plans, however, would be misleading without a consideration of urban transport planning and technology in Japan with special reference to Tokyo. This allows us the opportunity to gauge the extent to which this experience has relied upon absorbing and regurgitating Western (notably North American) ideas. Also, it permits us to identify the roots of indigenous ideas and appreciate the way in which new land use‐transport systems are pre‐packaged for export to Southeast Asian cities. We are then in a position to assess critically urban land use‐transport plans undertaken by Japanese consultants in Southeast Asia to determine the relevance of their technology to resolving the problems of the region's cities.