The fantasy of city planning
Sarit's understanding of national development was basic and unsophisti-
cated. Phatthana was expressed in terms of his paternalistic concern for
social happiness and the promotion of modern ways (Thak 1974: 327).
Direct intervention in the urban process included his decree of 1959
banning the three-wheeled samlor (pedicabs) from the streets of Bangkok
(because they were 'unsightly' and unfit to be seen in a modern city), the
clearance of some major slums, a welfare programme aiming to reduce
street begging, and a vain effort to send an increasing flood of rural-urban
migrants back to the countryside (Thak 1979: 164). Aside from these
heavy-handed efforts, policy formulation as such was left to overseas
consultants and the Thai technocrats. These included a development plan
for the metropolis. The Greater Bangkok Plan 2533, developed by the
American consultant team Litchfield and Associates in 1960, aimed to
establish land-use zoning and directions for urban growth for the next three
decades (Sternstein 1982: 109).
By the time of the commencement of the Litchfield study, Bangkok had
already made the transition to an automobile and road-based city in place
of its old canal-based infrastructure. Certainly the two transport modes
coexisted at that time and across the river in Thonburi, the canals were to
remain principal arteries of transport for at least another two decades. By
1960 a large number of both minor and major canals had already been
filled in and roads constructed in their place. While the Litchfield consul-
tants acknowledged the significance of the khlong as drains for storm water,
fire protection, disposal of sewage and even bathing, their plan was pred-
icated on the model of a modern Western city (Litchfield et al. 1960: 21-2).
Despite its growing redundancy, the canal system would determine much
of the pattern of future urban development, with ribbon-type growth
extending parallel to older water routes. In 1960 land values tended to be
high along the major east-west canals, a reflection of anticipated road
development and older high-status residential concentrations.
In the late 1950s Bangkok was still a relatively compact city. In 1947
the Bangkok and Thonburi municipalities (formed in 1936) housed well
under a million people in an area of between 60 to 67 square kilometres
(Donner 1978: 792). By 1960, under the impact of population and settle-
ment growth, Bangkok's built-up area had increased to some 90 square
kilometres. By that year the population of Bangkok-Thonburi had reached
over 2 million (Donner 1978: 791). As was typical of Western observa-
tions of Bangkok and other cities of Southeast Asia, Litchfield's report
emphasised the lack of clear zonal organisation, with minimal separation
of industrial, commercial and residential uses. The most noticeable
departure from this predominantly pre-war configuration was the cluster
of industries that had located close to the newly excavated river-port of
Khlong Toei and a predominantly middle-class suburban strip which had
developed along Sukhumvit Road.
The Greater Bangkok Plan 2533 produced by the Litchfield team in
1960 was never implemented. In 1963 Cyrus Nims, the USOM (United
States Overseas Mission) city planning adviser to the Thai government,
noted that effective implementation of the plan required adequate enforce-
ment powers and an effective planning authority for a capital district
encompassing Bangkok, Thonburi and surrounding provinces. Above all,
the task required coordination between numerous agencies in national
government. Nim's evaluation was pessimistic - coordination among
agencies was not evident, a new city planning office languished as a minor