IN-PERSON Lisbon Livable Cities. Section B

Abstract

People walk in the city – they seek affordable food amid the ever-changing usage and rising living costs in the area. For Bangkok (as the example of many developing countries in Southeast Asia and beyond), street vending has always been a consistent member (as a matter of fact, the key player) of the streetscape, reinforcing the affordability of the local street life (which accumulatively paint the city’s image as known by visitors) as well as affording the office workers to survive in the city centre’s area amid the high cost of living. This ecosystem, however, changes with time. With the city council’s planning policy moving toward the model of Singapore’s hawker centre, often in the name of keeping spatial order, the future of Bangkok’s gastronomical landscape and food security is left uncertain. By analysing the 2015, 2020, and 2025 fieldwork data, this paper investigates the life (and death) of street food in Silom (once Bangkok’s CBD) against the changing urban morphological profile and spatial usage and its implication of these food vending units building streetlife at eye level.