This report provides information on the First Round of the Asian Urban Enquiry. The Enquiry is designed to ask Asian urban administrators to identify their major problems, and some of the projects they have developed to address those problems. This First Round of the Enquiry has covered 128 cities from eight countries: The Republic of Korea,*1 India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Nepal, The Philippines, and Thailand. Questionnaires were completed by the Mayor or Chief Administrative officer, and in Japan by the Chief of the City Planning and Management Department. The enquiry for Japan included 26 cities with a questionnaire slightly different from that used for the other countries. This adjustment was made to bring the questions more in line with the realities of Japanese urban condition. It also means that for some of the following analysis, Japan will be treated separately from the other countries.

The 128 cities range in size from under 15,000 to 8.2 million. Their total growth rates, as reported by the respondents, average 3.0 percent per year, with a range of - 3.0 percent to 17.9 percent. In-migration averages 1.9 percent, ranging from -4.2 to 15.4per cent, and natural increase averages 1.4 percent, ranging from -1.1 to 5.5 percent. The great majority of the cities are medium-sized cities, with populations between 100,000 and one million, extending over less than 500 square kilometers, and showing densities between 1000 and 10,000 persons per square kilometer.

Most administrators perceive a large or moderate inflow of population into their cities. In only 19 cities (16%) do administrators perceive an outflow of population. There is a close relationship between the perception of flow and the perception of problems from the flow. Where administrators perceive a large inflow of population, they also perceive this to be a problem.

Urban problems were assessed by listing 39 different conditions (30 for Japan), from education, health and family planning to traffic volumes and flows, pollution, crime, city personnel and city revenues. The 39 conditions were grouped into 12 categories of conditions (9 for Japan). For each condition the administrators were asked to say whether the condition constituted a Major Urgent Problem, a Serious Problem, a Minor Problem, a Satisfactory Condition, or even an Advantage for the city. These five scores were code from 1 to 5, giving a positive score for urban conditions.

Overall, the most serious categories of problems for all but Japan were those associated with poverty plus development and rapid urbanization: transportation, employment, public utilities, city revenues, and housing for the poor. Japanese administrators also rate their transportation and public utilities as the most serious problems, but these come more from affluence and rapid economic growth than from poverty and rapid population growth. The most favorable conditions everywhere were health, welfare, family planning, education, and urban personnel. There was much consistency among all countries in the general ranking of problems and advantageous conditions.

When asked to identify their three most important problems, urban administrators again pointed to the problems of the physical infrastructure that is being strained by rapid growth. They also ask for more technical information and data on both producing that infrastructure and making it work. In addition, they want information on planning and urban administration.

The problems of all clearly lie in the urban infrastructure that is being heavily strained, by rapid economic growth for Japan and for the other countries by rapid inmigration as well. But there is also an interesting administrative problem illuminated by the enquiry. The administrators generally rate the quality and quantity of their staff to be good, but the amount and control of city revenues constitutes a serious problem. In effect the administrators are saying something that many urban specialists have said about urban problems in developing countries. The central government tries to control the local areas too much. It denies them the ability to raise and to control their own revenues, and thus denies them the ability to solve their own problems. This problem appears less serious in Japan, but it is found there as well.

The city administrators were also asked to identify projects they had initiated to deal with their problems. Eighty-four administrators identified 159 projects. Most of these concerned public construction projects for needed urban infrastructure, giving further indication that basic urban facilities constitute a major problem for the administrators. Another large number of projects was aimed at some form of industrial promotion, but the differences between the more and less wealthy countries was striking. Japan, for example, focuses on the development of modern high technology parks to attract business. Indonesian projects are more likely to focus on building market stalls, or giving small loans to entrepreneurs. In all cases, however, we see a great deal of local initiative being exercised by urban administrators to address their own problems.

For Korea and Japan data on various conditions are published for individual cities. These were used as objective indicators, whose values we could correlate with administrators' scores for roughly similar conditions. This provided a test of the validity of the administrators' perceptions of problems. In general, there was a fairly close correspondence between the value of the objective indicators and the scores urban administrators gave to those conditions. That analysis also permitted us to raise questions of specific cities, that emerged as deviant cases in the analysis.

An appendix undertakes an internal analysis of different questions to assess the reliability and validity of the administrators' answers. These show a high degree of reliability and validity, giving us confidence in the responses and judgments the administrators are making.

*1. Henceforth simply referred to as Korea.