Beyond Manila: Walls, Malls, and Private Spaces

Abstract

Suburbanisation in the extended metropolitan area of Manila has produced new middle-class consumer landscapes of exclusive suburbs—alongside tower blocks, offices, residential estates, shop-ping malls, and golf courses—linked by freeways and flyovers. Economic growth, the emergence of a new and mobile middle class, and the lack of public planning have emphasised individualism and privatisation. Enclosed homogeneous suburbs, designed and marketed as fragments of Europe in a global era, enhance security, exclusivity, and isolation. Suburban village associations regulate community life through private legal regimes and strengthen class divisions. Malls and freeways are further forms of privatisation and social segregation as the city has become more fragmented and divided whilst public space diminishes. Social divisions are particularly acute in cities like Manila where uneven development is considerable, the public sector is weak, and metropolitan government is absent.