Neighbourhoods for the City represents a systematic attempt to understand the Asian city from the viewpoint of its neighbourhoods. By focusing on the neighbourhood, the book incorporates three distinctive features. The first is an approach that examines the types of relationships in which the neighbourhood are implicated, including, most importantly, their relationship with the city government. In particular, I will examine why city governments need to manage the social and political dimensions of their relationships with city residents and not just focus on managing the economic interests of the city. It is at this level that Asia becomes meaningful in the analysis. In particular, East Asia is a region of sustained economic development. This implicates its largest cities, which are the engines of growth and also of middle-class consumption. It also places an enormous strain on its neighbourhoods because of the pressures of gentrification and redevelopment, as well as the influx of new migrants to the city. At the same time, East Asia is also a region marked by political change in the form of democratic developments and pressures to decentralize authority from the central state. This, in turn, makes city governments more receptive to the aspirations and demands of its neighbourhoods.