Development, Urbanization, Migration, and Quality of Life - Dragons and Tigers: A Geography of South, East and Southeast Asia - page 102

Figure 4-5
Street barber in V aranasi, India. Street barbers are
usually Dalit s (untouchables) because they deal
with dead hair . Photograph courtesy of
B. A. Weightman.

of “protected” wildlife, contraband, arms, drugs, and
people is widespread, especially in Southeast Asia. In
Thailand, the shadow economy contributed 52 percent of
the country' s GDP and involved 40 percent of its official
labor force in 2001. In 2008, Cambodia and Myanmar
(Burma) earned US$598 million and US$477 million,
respectively , via the shadow economy .
Asian black markets generated US$252.22 billion
with US$83.3 billion coming from China in 2008. In
China, the “Counterfeit Goods and Piracy Market” gen-
erates an estimated US$60 billion a year. This involves
the sales of illegally pirated items such as movie CDs and
DVDs, video games, and computer software. Movie,
music, and video game sales resulted in profits of nearly
US$2 billion in 2008.
In many countries, rural poverty produces streams of
migration to cities. Every day , tens of thousands of indi-
viduals and families leave the hopelessness of their rural
origins seeking opportunities perceived to exist in urban
destinations. Lacking requisite skills, they swell the pop-
ulations of squatter settlements and slums and bolster the
ranks of the unemployed and the shadow economy .
Crossing the border from Thailand to Laos, I was
accompanied by a crowd of women, each with a few bars
of soap, cigarettes, and other Thai and imported products,
which they hid on their person or beneath other bundles
under the vehicle' s benches. Unavailable in Laos, these
smuggled items were to be sold at roadside stands or
local market stalls. Even apparently minor instances as
these are part of the shadow economy .
Permeability of borders, official collusion, and lack
of opportunity encourage these and other survival

strategies. According to Ed Ayres, editor of W orld W atch
(1996), “The growth of the shadow economy can be seen
as pervasive evidence of human needs not being met by
traditional institutions.”
Growth of unregulated and illegal activities is also
related to accountability . Not permanently based at a par-
ticular place, they are difficult, if not virtually impossi-
ble, to trace. Unregistered settlements, occupations,
anarchic groups, and migratory populations transcend
and escape the capabilities of extant legal strictures.

Urbanization

Asian urbanization has skyrocketed into the twenty-first
century Table 4-3. Currently , Asia' is urbanization rate is
second highest in the world after Africa. Even so, most
people in Asia still live in rural areas.

URBAN GROWTH
In recent decades, Asia has surpassed the rest of the de-
veloping world in terms of its integration into the global
economy . This creates opportunities for urban develop-
ment, and studies conclude that people are better off eco-
nomically in cities. However, urban development has
proceeded unevenly . Some cities, such as Seoul, Singa-
pore, Taipei, and Shanghai, are becoming enmeshed into
the global economic system. Others, such as Dhaka,
Phnom Penh, and Vientiane, have more domestically
oriented economies and the effects of globalization are less