“Build the New City as Fast as Possible”: Speculation as Subsistence in Peri-Urban Myanmar

Abstract

This article examines an ambitious plan to construct a built-from-scratch new city outside Yangon, Myanmar and sheds light on the contradictory responses sparked by rapid urban expansion. Despite fears that this megaproject would threaten the region's way of life, hopes for the new city's construction remained high throughout the project's early phases. Residents of areas targeted for development went so far as to publicly demand the city be built “as fast as possible”. In this article, I highlight the gap between residents’ pro-project enthusiasm and the expectations of civil society activists and development actors, who predicted locals would reject the planned new city. I argue that this divergence exposes the perceived limitations of solutions held out for populations facing de-agrarianisation. Equally, it refocuses attention on how project-affected populations envision their own post-agrarian future. In doing so, I demonstrate how and why speculation on peri-urban land has emerged as a compelling mode of subsistence for even the poor among the region's landowning class.