Urban Middle Class and the Quality of Life Development: The Case Study of Northern and Western Outskirts of Bangkok and Periphery.

Abstract

Class-consciousness is a complex term with a very wide social definition depending on the socio-cultural context. Generally, in Thai society, middle class relates to the culture and the urban way of life.  Urban development includes various physical, economic and social changes that have a significant impact on people’s quality of life. This article looks at how the urban middle class define themselves within the urban lifestyle, and proposes recommendations for sustainable adjustment in the midst of consumerism. It focuses on the cultural diversity of the so-called urban middle-class lifestyle and their quality of life as it pertains to sustainable urban development. The qualitative method using Macro ethnography and phenomenology analysis are used. Snowball and Network techniques are important research tools. The unit of analysis is the Thai urban middle class, falling into two main groups as defined by academics. The first group is defined by an educational, socio-economic scale, and the other by income as a whole: upper and lower. The areas of study are the urban areas in the northern and western outskirts of Bangkok and its periphery, where urbanization is expanding rapidly.

It is suggested that apart from their daily consumption, the middle class should practice more “solidarity” in their collective consciousness, in order to improve their quality of life, and also to perform social responsibility to bring about sustainable urban development for “urban solidarity”