Reality of Urbanization and Urban Master Plan of Vientiane Capital, Lao PDR: Issues and Prospects

This study aims to identify the issues and prospects of Vientiane Urban Master Plan (VUMP) development processes under the urbanized conditions in the capital city of Lao PDR. The existing VUMP within the last decade has been brought into account in consideration both data collection and discussion processes. This study mainly focuses on identifying the characteristics and the implementation directions of the VUMP. In order to clarify these research questions, the implementation data from the Ministry of Public Works and Transport (MPWT), project investments data from the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI), and in-depth interview technique in the related sectors are utilized. From these data, the comparison analysis is applied crucially to learn the crossed dimensions between the existing VUMP and the implementation effectiveness.   Regarding the results, the implementation processes and administrative sectors are the paralleled issues in driving of VUMP. Therefore, this study suggests the possible solutions with combination of top-down and bottom-up approaches in the implementations. The top-down approach deals with strategic development direction, defined by the master plans. It is suggested that in the framework of implementing the master plans, economic, environmental, financial, and norm of social instruments should be applied in combination with regulative devices, as the later solely could be ineffective. On the other hand, the bottom-up approach emphasized on community empowerment and inclusion of people at the grass-root level into development processes. In order to move forward the collective actions in implementation of the VUMP, it is crucial to encourage the common understanding, share directions, and collaborations with various sectors

Hope and reality of new towns under greenbelt regulation: The case of self-containment or transit-oriented metropolises of the first-generation new towns in the Seoul Metropolitan Area, South Korea

A new town\u27s self-containment under greenbelt regulations is a planner\u27s hope modelled after Howard\u27s historical proposal. A planner chooses whether to increase the new town\u27s size to improve its self-containment or to form satellite-city networks. If the hope is an unattainable goal, a planner in reality should consider mass-transit connection with existing urban centres. The first-generation new towns in Korea can provide an important lesson as they can be categorised into large-sized self-containment towns and mid-sized networked towns, both of which followed transit-oriented developments. By reviewing the historical background and using multilevel multinomial logistic analysis of commuting data, this study confirmed the following results. First, the commuting rate to Seoul from the larger two new towns is no better than from the other three mid-sized towns. Second, networked new towns with the surrounding satellite cities promoted commutes to the periphery, but the rate of automobile usage is high. Finally, as the government invested in improvements of the transit connections, all five new towns achieved the goal of being sustainable regarding transit use. In the automobile age, a planner building a new town under urban containment regulations should embrace the difficulties of achieving a metropolis that is both self-contained and transit-oriented