Ghosts of the New City: Spirits, Urbanity, and the Runs of Progress in Chiang Mai - Southeast Asia: Politics, Meaning, and Memory

Despite new urban development initiatives, cracks appeared. The architecture of Chiang Mai (lit: new city) had suffered especially badly in the 1997 Asian financial crisis, as the Northern Thai real estate bubble collapsed along with the Thai baht, crushing dreams of a renaissance of Northern prosperity. Years later, the ruins of the excesses of the 1990s still stain the skyline. This book shows how the trauma of the crash, brought vividly back during the political crisis of 2006, opened up to question the hidden pitfalls that remain in efforts to remake the city. For many Chiang Mai residents, new developments were suspect, carrying with them the haunted seed of the crash made manifest in anxious stories of ghosts and criminals lurking behind the citys progressive veneer.