ABSTRACT

By their nature, patterns and processes of urban development and governance tend to be localized to individual cities. Yet a market for the export and import of all things urban has long existed; “international urban development leadership” has been reinvigorated and expanded significantly in an era of unprecedented international economic integration. East Asian nations have emerged as some of the leading sources for the “export” urban expertise of various sorts. These nations are notable for the pragmatism and concreteness of their rapid urbanization and industrialization—features that greatly appeal to a wide variety of Global South nations continuing to aspire to greater levels of development. Yet, important differences exist among East Asian nations in both the methods of export and the urban expertise involved. This chapter compares and contrasts some of the emerging differences in international urban development leadership among these three key national players. As a city-state, Singapore might be said to enjoy unique and first mover advantages in international urban development leadership in which close regard has been paid to the opportunities for “money-making” from the Singapore story and growing its smart and sustainable urban solutions industry. China rapidly has emulated some of the direct investment approaches found in the Singapore case, albeit with the geopolitical largess of “money-giving”. South Korea’s more recent “going abroad” has been aligned more ambivalently with international overseas development aid efforts in which it nevertheless has hoped to magnify Government-to-Government (G2G) arrangements for its large and well-established private sector as “money-leveraging”.