System of cities dynamics in newly industrializing nations

Rapid industrialization in such countries as Korea, Malaysia, and Taiwan suggests that the complex functional structures of cities in the periphery may appear early in development. This paper proposes a 4-stage framework for the dynamics of a system of cities in a developing country undergoing industrialization and encompassing both nonindustrial and industrial development. The synthesis is assessed with evidence from the newly industrializing Asian nations of Korea, Malaysia, and Taiwan. The 4 stages of cities' industrial change include 1) increasing primacy with industrial satellites, 2) increasing primacy with industrial satellites and nodal towns on a transport network, 3) rapidly increasing primacy with rapidly growing industrial satellites and nodal towns on the transport network, and 4) decreasing primacy with slowly growing industrial satellites and rapidly growing peripheral industrial towns. The 4-stage synthesis suggests that economic development in the periphery may occur even while the primate city maintains its hegemony over control and coordination functions. Peripheral industrial growth does not challenge this hegemony. The growth of industrial cities is, instead, part of a process of regional specialization in which the low cost labor in the periphery becomes an attraction for industry. These stages are not inevitable. Government efforts are necessary to develop rural areas in terms of social improvements (education and health), capital infrastructure (transportation and utilities), and fair payments to farmers for their outputs. These seem to be the lessons learned from the industrialization process in Korea, Malaysia, and Taiwan.