TABLE OF CONTENTS - The Professional Green Building Council

Theme B: Creating a livable, healthy and environmentally viable citiesCOMPACT CITY STRATEGY OF BANGKOK MEGA CITYCHAWEEWAN DENPAIBOON1 AND HIDEIKO KANEGAE21Faculty of Architecture and Planning, Thammasat University, Patumthani Province12121, Thailand2 Graduate School of Policy Science, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, JapanABSTRACT: The objectives of study encompass 3 aspects. First is to analyze the Bangkok MegaCity Model in 3 sub areas i around the "New International Airport; Suvarnabhumi". Second is toanalyze the compact city policy to measure factors of the compact city based on affordabletransportation costs related to household income, job-housing balance, and facilities. Third is toanalyze household commuting travel by the modeling displays with visual simulation. The resultsshow that the compact city strategy can shed light on the lifestyle of residents in mega city.Moreover, the study reveals the patterns of urban structure of Bangkok Metropolis are closed to thecompact city concept that means the residents utilize urban structure around the area of residencesthat are not more than 20 km distant. It intends to show the necessity of urban policy to pursue "acompact city" in the Bangkok Mega City.Keywords: Compact City Policy, Mega City, Bangkok Metropolitan Regions1. INTRODUCTIONThe mega city ii is also known as one of the most rapidly growing and increasinglypopulated cities, in addition to having the largest scale of urban infrastructure inthe world (MIT: 2000). Bangkok Metropolis is considered as one of the world’s 21mega cities (Guest: 2000). It has a rapidly increasing population, which willincrease to 10.5 million, and also the surrounding areas will increase by millions.This means that an additional 1.5 million people will live in the Greater BangkokArea, and a million people will be located in the surrounding provinces.Populations and built up areas as of 2001 are showing urban sprawl (see Figure 1and Figure 2). What we witness today requires new concepts and strategies for themanagement of this “urban world” - especially for the largest humanagglomerations. All the specific problems of this century’s development appearmost obvious in mega cities that cause population migration, changes in regionalpatterns and fast growing cities. Moreover, the character and spatial distribution ofmega cities of the 21st century has been called the age of urbanization, during237