5 Globalization and the Urban Form : Transformations in Colombo in the 1980 S and 1990 S

Nihal Perera is an Assistant Professor of Urban Planning at Ball State University. He has been Chief Architect-Planner for the Mahaweli Development Project, Sri Lanka, and Regional and Physical Planning Consultant for the Transmigration Project, Indonesia. His most recent publication is Society and Space: Colonialism, Nationalism, and Postcolonial Identity in Sri Lanka (Westview,/998). The colonial built environment of Colombo, the former capital of Sri Lanka, remained largely intact for three decades after independence in 1948. From the late 1970s, however, it was subjected to drastic transformations highlighted by the shifting of the seat of government from Colombo to Sri Jayawardhanapura, symbolized by a national­ looking new parliament complex, and the invigoration of the central business district in the former fort area by turning it into an "international-style" high-rise development. What does this abrupt transformation of Colombo's Landscape mean? Why in the late 1970s and not immediately after independence? What are the relationships between the transformations in Sri Lanka and those in the rest ofAsia during this period? Addressing these questions is not only crucial for the understanding of changes in Colombo, but would also shed light on similar social and spatial restructuring of cities in rapidly transforming Asia. I shall argue that this phenomenon, which is much broader than these transformations in Colombo, is best understood as part of the particular process of globalization that has been taking place over the last couple of decades.