Book excerpt: This book is based on the results of over two decades of field research on cities and towns of Thailand, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore. The connections between micro and macro processes, between grassroots interactions and urban structures, between social theory and empirical data are analysed to provide a vivid picture of the great variety of urban forms, the social creativity in the slums of Bangkok, Manila or Jakarta, the variety of cultural symbolism and the political and religious structuration of urban space. The book is written in the tradition of German or European sociological research from Marx and Weber to Habermas and Bourdieu. It will be of interest to urban anthropologists, political scientists and sociologists, to students of Southeast Asian history, culture and society, to urban planners and policy makers.