What If the Urban Primacy of Bangkok Did Not Exist?
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Abstract
The urban primacy of Bangkok has long reflected uneven provincial and regional development in Thailand. To date, various approaches, including indicators in the demographic, socioeconomic, and physical dimensions, have been employed to observe and explain its urban primacy. In contrast to previous studies, the present study starts by asking the question: What if the urban primacy of Bangkok did not exist? Analysis was conducted by setting two scenarios, namely, with and without the Bangkok data. The main objective of the study is to explore and compare the two scenarios at the provincial level using six indicators, namely, urban population and urbanization rate (demographic), gross provincial product (GPP) and GPP per capita (economic), human achievement index (social), and built-up area (physical). Furthermore, the study analyzed the rank-size distribution and relationships among these indicators. The results indicate that indicators in the demographic and economic dimensions evidently reflect the primacy of Bangkok; however, an indicator in the social dimension is not representative of Bangkok’s primacy. Thus, the study concludes that with or without the urban primacy of Bangkok, no difference exists in terms of the social development index among Thai cities.
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