Urban Issues in the Philippines

Asst Prof Justin Stern, Joshua Vargas, Kalla Sy, Chelsea Ho

Qualitative research, transcription, geospatial analysis, research communication

Project Brief

Urban Issues in the Philippines is a Yale-NUS College Summer Research Programme (SRP) Project with Assistant Professor Justin D. Stern as the Principal Investigator. The Summer Research Programme (SRP) enables students to pursue full-time, funded research in the humanities, sciences, and social sciences during the semester break from June to August. The SRP also includes skill-building workshops on abstract writing for research, creation of posters and presentations, as well as effective communication and time management.

Target Audience

The results from this Summer Research Programme project are contributions to Asst Prof Justin Stern's projects on cities and economic development in the Philippines. These include a paper to be published in the Journal of Southeast Asian Studies and further upcoming papers documenting some of the latest developments in the Philippine real estate sector.

Our team's presentation at the 2020 Yale-NUS Summer Research Symposium.

Skills Utilised

RESEARCH & PRESENTATION

Literature Review

Interview Transcription

Coding and Text Analysis

Presentation Design

Video Production

GEOSPATIAL DATA

ArcGIS Pro

QGIS 3

Google Earth Pro

Urban Issues in the Philippines is a project that seeks to understand the connection between globalisation and the built environment in the Philippines. The most obvious link between the two is the business process outsourcing (BPO) sector and how its demand for office space, enablement of social mobility, and contribution to the Philippine economy accelerated urban growth, but in patterns that are favourable to it. In this project, we also explored other economic trends that are affecting the built environment, not only in Manila but also in Cebu, the second-largest economic hub, and next-wave Philippine cities like Bacolod.

Joshua expanded on his experiences from the Summer Research Programme to pursue an independent research project focusing on the city of Cebu. His article on The Diacritic magazine, 'Manaog Lang Ko sa Ayala: A City Built by Corporations,' is his first independent piece from this area of research.

Joshua's photo of Bonifacio Global City, one of the biggest office parks in the Philippines, and the surrounding slums.

A map of Philippine next-wave cities, or cities that are being positioned for focused economic development; blue dots show call centres.

Joshua's photo of Cebu IT Park, one of the hubs for the business process outsourcing sector outside of Metro Manila.

Urban Issues in the Philippines

Where to Find Me