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Urban growth and change in 1940s S outheast A sia
Author(s) -
Huff Gregg,
Huff Gillian
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
the economic history review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.014
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1468-0289
pISSN - 0013-0117
DOI - 10.1111/ehr.12073
Subject(s) - livelihood , geography , population , food security , development economics , refugee , politics , population growth , settlement (finance) , economy , economic growth , political science , economics , agriculture , sociology , demography , archaeology , finance , law , payment
This article analyses demographic change in Southeast A sia's main cities during and soon after the S econd W orld W ar J apanese occupation. We argue that two main patterns of population movements are evident. In food‐deficit areas, a search for food security typically led to large net inflows to main urban centres. By contrast, an urban exodus dominated in food surplus regions because the chief risk was to personal safety, especially from J apanese and A llied bombing. Black markets were ubiquitous, and essential to sustaining livelihoods in cities with food‐deficit hinterlands. In R angoon and M anila, wartime population fluctuations were enormous. Famines in J ava and northern I ndochina severely impacted J akarta and H anoi through inflows of people from rural areas. In most countries, the war's aftermath of refugees, revolution, and political disruption generated major rural–urban population relocations. Turmoil in the 1940s had the permanent consequences of augmenting the primacy of Southeast A sia's main cities and promoting squatter settlement.