Urbanization, impermeable boundary and losing communal identity: A case study of the local waterfront community in Bangkok suburbs

Abstract

This study aims to investigate urbanization effects on place identity of the local waterfront community in a Bangkok suburb. The study argues that urban developments in a Bangkok suburb community contribute to impermeability, which refers to bordering space separating new urban communities from their local waterfront counterparts. The emergence of impermeable boundaries leads to the decline of social connections and communal identity of place in terms of physical functions and communal sharing. Spatial-relation schemes and aerial photograph analyses and process tracing were employed to examine the expansion of urban subdivisions and public transportation on waterfront communities along Om-Non canal, Nonthaburi province. The findings indicate that expansion of the new gated residences in parallel with transportationnetwork developments changes physical and social structures of the local waterfront community in such a way that it has faced the symbolic deterioration of interdependency and the decline of communal sharing. This study recommends that in order to promote sustaining identity of the waterfront community on the development, new physical nodes for communal interactions could be created; for example, livable waterfronts can become recreational, public places for reconnection between local and new-coming residents to regenerate kinships.