BANGKOK BOUNDARIES Social Networks in the City of Mubahnchatsan

Abstract

Bangkok is rapidly transforming into a city of Mubahnchatsan, the Thai version of the gated community of which the inhabitants belong to the same income group. In the vast urban field of this city, new mubahnchatsan for various income groups are built at an incredible rate. As such, Bangkok is yet another example in a range of cities where gated living is becoming the norm instead of an exception. Urban studies literature gives these gated communities a bad press. Walls and gates are said to create exclusionary spaces that physically separate the lives of the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’. The public sphere is undermined because these groups do not meet. Wissink, Dijkwel and Meijer looked into this supposition: do various groups in Bangkok still meet?