Conflicting green landscape ideologies in a tai rural town in thailand

Abstract

This article discusses the conflict in ideologies between centralized policies, influenced by City Beautification and top-down comprehensive planning, and a local participatory approach taking account of multiple ethnic livelihoods, as played out at the municipal level of Mae Hong Son town. These conflicting, complex urban-rural ideologies and cultural mixes are sharply revealed in this small town's first formal public participatory process conducted by the municipality for a proposed development along Nam Pu Creek to the north of the town. The process also publicly situated the debate on what defines a socially constructed 'green' planning policy for public open spaces, who decides and who ..