In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

■ PARIWATE VARNAKOVIDA / JOSEPH MESSINA TheSufficiencyEconomy, SustainableDevelopment,and AgriculturalTownsinThailand T H E C A S E O F N A N G R O N G During the late twentieth century, much of Southeast Asia adopted the pro-growth policies of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The export-oriented growth model focused on development in the industrial and commercial sectors using resources from rural economies.1 Following regional trends, Thailand from 1960 through the mid-2000s adopted the National Development Plan, which focused on rapid gross national product (GNP) growth through capital-intensive industrialization.2 However, with the adoption of this development plan, uneven growth and significant equity imbalances resulted in highly disproportionate income distributions and extreme differences in basic living standards emerging between urban and rural areas.3 Concurrently , land and other natural resources increasingly became maldistributed as early settlers acquired the last remaining available lands and, of course, preferentially selected the best lands with the best soil and water conditions, further exacerbating national inequities. While Thailand was focusing on capital-intensive industrialization, in 1974 King Bhumibol Adulyadej introduced a new national development model: the philosophy of the sufficiency economy, which focused on investment in the rural agricultural sector, where traditionally the vast majority of the Thai population was and still is employed.4 The sufficiency economy is explicitly sustainable based on the holistic concepts of moderation and contentment. The philosophy was introduced with the idea of production not just for profit maximization but also for advancement toward sustainability. Over the last four decades, these two competing development strategies —offering very different approaches to economic growth and resulting variably in social and environmental stresses—played important roles in shaping national, regional, and local policies in Thailand. The World Commission on Environment and Development defined sustainable development as “development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of 120 ■ PARIWATE VARNAKOVIDA / JOSEPH MESSINA the future generations to meet their own needs.”5 Sustainability and urban sustainability have long histories, as shown in Igor Vojnovic’s “Advancing toward Urban Sustainability,” but it has been argued that any movement toward sustainability requires that natural resource utilization include consideration of both intergenerational and intragenerational equities.6 Intergenerational equity requires consuming resources at rates less than their regeneration rates and maintaining waste discharges at or below the carrying capacity of the natural environment. Intragenerational equity requires equitable access to resources among existing populations.7 In the context of less developed regions, intragenerational equity must also satisfy the basic needs of the people in the existing generations. As argued by Cedric Pugh,8 sustainable development is basically about maintaining environmental resources for the present generations while minimizing environmental degradation, thereby ensuring environmental and social well-being in the future. In this chapter, we explore the history of Thailand, where the impacts of globalization and the adoption of an urban-based development policy have had considerable implications on basic issues of social equity and natural environmental stresses. The national pressures associated with increasing social disparities caused by some three decades of export-oriented growth development contributed, in part, to a military overthrow of the government in 2006. The coup set in motion the adoption of a new policy direction based on King Aduladej’s sufficiency economy as Thailand attempts to pursue its own version of a more sustainable socioeconomic and environmental policy direction. Exploring the challenges in Thailand and the national conflicts of two very different contexts of development, this chapter uses the case of the Nang Rong district in Northeast Thailand to illustrate more explicitly how the different national policies have been translated into local initiatives and outcomes that have produced varying degrees of urban-environmental and urban-social stresses, as well as movements toward and away from the sustainability condition. Urban Transitions and Development in Thailand and the Rise of the Sufficiency Economy Located in central Southeast Asia, Thailand covers approximately 198,457 square miles. As of 2005 the total population was 62,418,054, with a population density of 315 persons per square mile.9 The first Thai or Siamese state was founded in 1238 and was called the Sukhothai kingdom. The current (Ratthanakosin) era of Thai history began in 1782 following the establishment of Bangkok as capital of the Chakri dynasty under King Rama I the Great.10 King Rama V (1868–1910) promoted modern urban development in Bangkok by making it the center of...

Share