The Structures of Personal Networks in Asian Megacities

:Urbanisation Revisited

Abstract

This paper revisits the debate on urbanism by clarifying how people living in Asian megacities construct personal networks to maintain or improve the quality of their urban lives. It focuses on personal networks utilised as individual’s risk response in Asian megacities, where more dynamic urbanisation progress, with a different cultural background to western societies. Using a common questionnaire, middle- and lower-class residents of Bangkok, Shanghai and Tokyo were surveyed. The analysis revealed that the structure of personal support networks differs depending on individual’s status (middle or lower classes) in Bangkok and Shanghai, and that people’s re-embedding into community can be observed in kinship in Shanghai, local communities in Bangkok, and association communities in Tokyo. The result suggests urban life in East Asian megacities does not follow a gradual linear progression of individualisation but has developed in a unique manner. The correlations of self-assessed life satisfaction with the size of enacted and perceived support networks were not clearly found, though with the quality (physical and psychological intimacy) of perceived networks with family members show a positive correlation in all surveyed cities. The given traditional relationship, kinships in particular, people are embedded in are likely the core of individual’s life, even though who are included there varies in three cities. It can be seen as a characteristic of East Asian urbanisation, yet further research is required to distinguish between the impact of the factors of urbanisation and local contexts.