Urban Risk and Well-being in Asian Megacities: Urban Lower and Middle Classes in Bangkok, Shanghai, and Tokyo

Rapid urbanisation presents challenges such as inequality, informalisation and diversified, social needs for emerging cities. Informal and formal institutions and their impact on urban development and well-being vary across social classes and cities.

Endo, Shibuya, and their contributors provide a systematic and multifaceted overview of urban well-being. It explores the characteristics and complexities of urban well-being of lower and middle classes in Asian megacities. The book explains that social setting and socioeconomic condition of individuals and households play a critical role in urban well-being. It offers insights on the vulnerabilities and resilience of urban populations and the intertwined dynamics of social networks and what they mean for individual well-being.

This book will be a useful reference for students, researchers and academics in urban studies, Asian studies or development studies.

Tamaki Endo is Professor at the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Saitama University. Her research interests include informal economy, urban development, inequality and global value chain. She received her PhD in Economics (2007) from Kyoto University. Main publications are Living with Risks: Precarity & Bangkok’s Urban Poor (NUS Press association with Kyoto University Press, 2014), Goto, Endo and Ito [eds], The Asian Economy: Contemporary Issues and Challenges (Routledge, 2020).

Momoyo Shibuya is an Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Saitama University. She received her PhD from Macquarie University on ethnic relations of the Japanese transnational community in a social contextual shift. After completing her degree, she worked as a researcher in the media industry and at think tanks before joining Saitama University. Her research interests include ethnic networks and soft power contributing one chapter to the Routledge Handbook of Soft Power (2nd ed., forthcoming).