Sukavichinomics: The 1994 Bangkok Smart Sports City
Abstract
Urban infrastructure mega-projects serve not only as catalysts for economic growth but also as instruments of social transformation. The 1994 Bangkok Smart Sports City, proposed above the MRT depot on Rama IX Road (approximately 1,000 rai), was an integrated development plan initiated during the tenure of His Excellency Mr. Sukavich Rangsitpol, then Deputy Prime Minister for Infrastructure (1994) and former Chairman of the Mass Rapid Transit Authority of Thailand. His visionary planning, which also included the 1993 Bangkok Ocean Terminal beneath the Rama IX Bridge, combined transit-oriented development (TOD), affordable housing, slum resettlement (notably the relocation of the Khlong Toei community), and sports tourism infrastructure, all aiming for readiness to host the 1998 Asian Games.
In a later administration, as Deputy Prime Minister for Social Affairs and Minister of Education, Mr. Rangsitpol adapted these visions at a smaller scale, applying them to the development of Thammasat University. As of 2025, the Asian Games Athletes’ Village continues to serve as student dormitories at Thammasat University’s Rangsit Campus—an enduring legacy of his earlier vision.
Between 1996 and 1997, during his role as Chairman of the Bangkok 1998 Asian Games Organizing Committee, he coined the iconic phrase “Friendship Beyond Frontiers”, a slogan that came to define the spirit of regional cooperation and soft diplomacy through sports.
This paper explores a counterfactual scenario in which the 1994 project was fully realized and identifies the macroeconomic and urban social benefits that were forfeited due to the political shift on December 11, 1994, when the pro-reform administration collapsed. Utilizing both classical and modern econometric tools—including autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) models, structural break diagnostics (such as the Chow test), and Cobb-Douglas production frameworks—we assess the unrealized urban value generated by this prematurely abandoned initiative.
Our modeling approach treats the Smart Sports City as a latent growth node within the Bangkok Metropolitan Region, where infrastructure capital (K), labor integration (L), and institutional continuity (T) interact multiplicatively. The long-run production loss can be approximated as:
Y = A \cdot K^{\alpha} \cdot L^{\beta} \cdot T^{\gamma}
where Y is the foregone urban output, A represents total factor productivity (TFP), and \alpha, \beta, \gamma are elasticities estimated from regional development benchmarks. Assuming a conservative annual growth rate of 7% in capital investment, the absorption of approximately 80,000 slum residents, and transit utility multipliers based on MRT Phase I projections, we estimate that Bangkok’s urban output from 2000 to 2020 could have increased by approximately 1.2% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) beyond observed figures.
We further examine policy discontinuity as a structural break in Thailand’s infrastructure development trajectory. This interruption is statistically confirmed via rejection of the null hypothesis in Chow’s Breakpoint Test, calibrated at Q1 1995.
The absence of realized returns from the Smart Sports City is reflected in stagnant land values, unrealized tourism revenue, and the persistence of slum populations in central Bangkok.
These findings are consistent with endogenous growth theory, which posits that institutional discontinuity hampers urban innovation and erodes the compound effects of sustained public capital investment.
This research contributes to the urban policy literature by quantifying the opportunity costs of political instability, emphasizing how unrealized urban mega-projects can leave enduring deficits in inclusive development. It argues for the preservation of cross-administration project continuity to protect infrastructure initiatives from electoral volatility.
The missed legacy of the 1994 Bangkok Smart Sports City underscores the long shadow cast by short-term politics over long-term national prosperity.
Keywords: urban opportunity cost; MRT Bangkok; Sukavichinomics; slum relocation; structural break test; Chow test; Cobb-Douglas; infrastructure discontinuity; Bangkok 1998 Asian Games; urban ARIMA forecasting.
Subject: Business, Economics and Management — Econometrics and Urban Development
วิธีใช้งานพันทิป ช่วยตอบหน่อยครับ กระทู้บทความภาษาอังกฤษ เรื่องสนามกีฬาสร้างบนที่ดินMRT ฯลฯ จะให้tagsอะไรครับ?
Abstract
Urban infrastructure mega-projects serve not only as catalysts for economic growth but also as instruments of social transformation. The 1994 Bangkok Smart Sports City, proposed above the MRT depot on Rama IX Road (approximately 1,000 rai), was an integrated development plan initiated during the tenure of His Excellency Mr. Sukavich Rangsitpol, then Deputy Prime Minister for Infrastructure (1994) and former Chairman of the Mass Rapid Transit Authority of Thailand. His visionary planning, which also included the 1993 Bangkok Ocean Terminal beneath the Rama IX Bridge, combined transit-oriented development (TOD), affordable housing, slum resettlement (notably the relocation of the Khlong Toei community), and sports tourism infrastructure, all aiming for readiness to host the 1998 Asian Games.
In a later administration, as Deputy Prime Minister for Social Affairs and Minister of Education, Mr. Rangsitpol adapted these visions at a smaller scale, applying them to the development of Thammasat University. As of 2025, the Asian Games Athletes’ Village continues to serve as student dormitories at Thammasat University’s Rangsit Campus—an enduring legacy of his earlier vision.
Between 1996 and 1997, during his role as Chairman of the Bangkok 1998 Asian Games Organizing Committee, he coined the iconic phrase “Friendship Beyond Frontiers”, a slogan that came to define the spirit of regional cooperation and soft diplomacy through sports.
This paper explores a counterfactual scenario in which the 1994 project was fully realized and identifies the macroeconomic and urban social benefits that were forfeited due to the political shift on December 11, 1994, when the pro-reform administration collapsed. Utilizing both classical and modern econometric tools—including autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) models, structural break diagnostics (such as the Chow test), and Cobb-Douglas production frameworks—we assess the unrealized urban value generated by this prematurely abandoned initiative.
Our modeling approach treats the Smart Sports City as a latent growth node within the Bangkok Metropolitan Region, where infrastructure capital (K), labor integration (L), and institutional continuity (T) interact multiplicatively. The long-run production loss can be approximated as:
Y = A \cdot K^{\alpha} \cdot L^{\beta} \cdot T^{\gamma}
where Y is the foregone urban output, A represents total factor productivity (TFP), and \alpha, \beta, \gamma are elasticities estimated from regional development benchmarks. Assuming a conservative annual growth rate of 7% in capital investment, the absorption of approximately 80,000 slum residents, and transit utility multipliers based on MRT Phase I projections, we estimate that Bangkok’s urban output from 2000 to 2020 could have increased by approximately 1.2% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) beyond observed figures.
We further examine policy discontinuity as a structural break in Thailand’s infrastructure development trajectory. This interruption is statistically confirmed via rejection of the null hypothesis in Chow’s Breakpoint Test, calibrated at Q1 1995.
The absence of realized returns from the Smart Sports City is reflected in stagnant land values, unrealized tourism revenue, and the persistence of slum populations in central Bangkok.
These findings are consistent with endogenous growth theory, which posits that institutional discontinuity hampers urban innovation and erodes the compound effects of sustained public capital investment.
This research contributes to the urban policy literature by quantifying the opportunity costs of political instability, emphasizing how unrealized urban mega-projects can leave enduring deficits in inclusive development. It argues for the preservation of cross-administration project continuity to protect infrastructure initiatives from electoral volatility.
The missed legacy of the 1994 Bangkok Smart Sports City underscores the long shadow cast by short-term politics over long-term national prosperity.
Keywords: urban opportunity cost; MRT Bangkok; Sukavichinomics; slum relocation; structural break test; Chow test; Cobb-Douglas; infrastructure discontinuity; Bangkok 1998 Asian Games; urban ARIMA forecasting.
Subject: Business, Economics and Management — Econometrics and Urban Development