NAY PYI TAW: AN EVALUATION OF THE CAPITAL CITY'S READINESS FOR POLITICAL CHANGE

Abstract

Capital cities play a vital role as the central repository of political and economic power and as the seat of government. They strive to reflect the character and aspirations of the state; and their geographical location and planning have always been crucial to this objective. The act of relocating capital cities is not uncommon; many countries have engaged in this exercise, either constructing new cities from scratch or redeveloping smaller cities, and for various reasons including national identity formation and security. Nay Pyi Taw, the new capital city of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, is the most recent example of a relocated capital city, having been founded only in 2002 on a site 320km north of the old capital city of Yangon. In 2005 the military government began moving government ministries from Yangon to Nay Pyi Taw, and as of 2009 the population of the city was 625,000, making it one of the world’s 10 fastest growing cities. Nay Pyi Taw is a city very much still under construction, the development of which is highly interesting. Several reasons have been given for the sudden relocation of the capital to Nay Pyi Taw, both official and speculated. It is the aim of this paper to examine the design and planning of the city; to draw correlations between the objectives and the results, as well as to examine the validity of these reasons. This will be done first through the gaining of a deeper understanding of the political, cultural and religious history of the country as well as the practices and traditional world views of the people, which will help inform the analysis during the field work – a visit to the city itself and an interview with the city planning authority. Further, given the changing political landscape in Myanmar presently, this paper then aims to assess the readiness of the city for this political transformation, especially since the city was conceived for a different political landscape and under a different administration.