Matriz de requerimientos directos e indirectos (Matriz inversa de Leontief)

Large urban development projects such as satellite cities have a host of impacts on local communities. Some of these are clearly negative -- social segregation, displacement, access to public space and the relationship to local culture and climate. The huge discrepancies in income and lifestyle between the residents of the satellite cities and most of the local people will at best cause an acute cultural disjuncture even as it provides employment opportunities in construction and passing trade. Although there were no forced evictions in preparing land for the construction of Camko City and GPPIC, projects of this size in a country as poor as Cambodia are part of a process of urban change that disadvantages the poor in urban and peri-urban areas, as has been shown in the not dissimilar case of Hanoi (Monthéard, 2010). There are few people living in the vicinity of GPPIC because it was previously a flooded area, and although Camko City is

located in a more populated area, it too is built on a former lake. The developers of Camko City purchased land from existing property owners in order to construct a new road through the project. A number of properties were demolished and residents were offered a non-negotiable price of $35 per square metre for land (interview 36, female, food seller). The development of other satellite cities by local companies, such as Koh Pich and Chrouy Changvar City, have resulted in the compulsory purchase of people’s land and houses with the assistance of the state. The processes by which this occurs will be discussed in the next chapter (Chapter 7).

The land on which peri-urban development occurs is generally agricultural or former agricultural land. Because of the proximity of Phnom Penh as a concentration of employment opportunities, few families living in peri-urban areas still rely solely on agriculture for their livelihood. It is often the case that people live in the city and thus own the land but no longer farm it, preferring to wait for somebody to buy it from them. Some poor people sell their land as a way to pay off debts or to fund healthcare costs, or just to make some money from land that they do not use (interview 6, researcher, local NGO).

Looking specifically at Camko City and GPPIC, the filling in of lakes and marshland to provide the land on which the projects were constructed has meant that local communities initially felt the impact in terms of increased flooding. As Map 6.2 shows, a large amount of land that would previously absorb rainwater has been backfilled for urban development.

During interviews with local residents, a number of residents living in the vicinity of Camko City reported that as the lake was filled in, their properties flooded. In order to rectify this, they had to raise the level of their houses, during which time they could not operate their businesses. GPPIC have taken a more careful approach, by studying how to manage the water system. The company created several lakes, including one some 30 metres deep, to compensate for filling in other lakes and marshland (interview 28, urban planner and architect, GPPIC).

The majority of residents interviewed who are living and working near Camko City had incomes of between $5 and $10 per day. Most were

operating some sort of small business from the front of their house, such as selling cooked food, groceries or mobile phone accessories to the construction site and garment factory employees who work nearby. Some local people felt that Camko City was a private place and were intimidated by the presence of security guards. One respondent commented: “I used to drive motorbike and carry clothes from factory and I was stopped by security guard, they said ‘where you want to go? This place is not for public’” (interview 40, male, tailor). Another commented: “I’ve never been in Camko City area. I heard that security is so strict they don’t want other outsiders entry so that I don’t want go there I might be blamed by the security guard so feel ashamed if I enter there” (interview 38, male, mechanic). The developers of Camko City once reportedly blocked the access road to an apartment building where garment factory workers rent rooms, in contradiction to a previous agreement signed with the building’s owners (Pat, 2011). However, other locals actually appropriated the open space at Camko City to do their exercises in the early morning and evenings. The security guards permitted this practice on the condition that they didn’t try to enter the gated residential clusters. One lady commented that “I have chance to visit inside of the Camko City community freely and there are a big space for doing exercise” (interview 31, female, food seller).

This is a similar situation to what Choplin and Frank (2010) found in their work on satellite cities in Africa.

A member of the urban planning team at MPP commented that the municipality wanted the satellite cities to be less exclusive. He suggested that this can be achieved by building housing which caters to different income groups or making contributions to nearby neighbourhoods, and including open space at 35% of the total area (interview 10, vice director, Office of Urbanisation, MPP). However, these recommendations are not mentioned in official MPP documents, nor are they legal requirements for developers.

The type of housing provided is left entirely to the whims of property developers, and both Camko City and GPPIC contain only high-end housing, even though there is currently a limited demand for such properties.

Communities around Camko City have the option to connect to Camko City’s private power supply. The price is slightly higher than the public supplier but it is more reliable, and thus good for local businesses who suffer fewer power disruptions. One respondent commented that “most of us make sewing clothes and need 24 hours electricity for operating sewing machine so that we need more electricity supply even we have to pay a little high cost more than public. It cost is 1000 riels per KWh [$0.25]. We cannot depend on only unstable public electricity connection” (interview 45, female, housewife). While this electricity network is not a universal, public service, it does represent a slight contrast to Graham and Marvin’s (2001) concept of ‘splintering urbanism’, which suggests that private infrastructures are only accessible by the wealthy.

Up to now there is no evidence of organised resistance by local communities against these satellite city developments in Cambodia. In contrast, there has been considerable opposition to similar projects in India.

For example, in 2006 the Dankuni Township was to be built on 2,000 hectares of land near Kolkata. But despite the intentions of the government to acquire land, no land was acquired because both the state and local communities knew the effectiveness of previous community protests surrounding similar projects (Shatkin, 2011). The ruling party was worried that the displacement of the poor for these development projects may dissuade voters at the next election. In Vietnam too, large protests over the development of a satellite city called EcoPark on the outskirts of Hanoi made the international news (BBC News, 2012). A company was given a concession by the government to develop 500 hectares of land that is currently used by around 4000 farmers. Residents were offered a compensation package that many felt was inadequate. The government is working closely with the private sector, which has meant that compensation arrangements tend to favour the companies over the existing tenants (Sun &

T V Kim, 2008). However, Kim (2011) has argued that compensation to those affected by urban development projects has increased in recent years.

Cambodia has not witnessed such large-scale evictions as has been seen in Vietnam, China and India. The country is only a pseudo-democracy with

one party dominating the political scene. Protest is generally not tolerated and given the history of the country there is perhaps a fear of the government. The attention of the media and NGO community has focused on a number of large forced evictions that are occurring in the central city.