[Irenicus]

Originally Posted by Xellos-_^

i think when Thaskin's party win next time around. They should just go ahead and move the capital to another city, built another airport there and let bangkok rot.

You let Bangkok rot, you let Thailand rot. It's the single biggest metropolis in the country by far, the sole economic center, an international financial center of some note (though not as prominent as, say, Singapore), a historic capital, a cultural center, the educational center, roughly at the geographic center, and the biggest tourist spot. In short, it's the epicenter of Thailand.

The city may or may not have decayed. But it wasn't very clean and nice and pretty to begin with. It's an archetypal developing country's metropolis kind of place -- huge, overcrowded, polluted, with the very rich and very poor, and immensely interesting.

Or may be I'm just biased. Admittedly, much of Thailand's economy depends on the agricultural sector -- the rural area -- but if you remove Bangkok from the focus, you remove any chance for the country to move from being just a breadbasket to anything resembling a developing country (assumption = towards a more diverse economy).

I definitely don't think a copy of the Burmese move is a good idea. Oh, sorry, Myanmar. Hah.

Originally Posted by kyon.haruhi.suzumiya

Also, during Thaksin, there was much improvement in Thailand as a whole, so I think the PAD is just an empty vessel that is characteristically noisy.

The development came at a price of looting the treasury and monopolizing otherwise growing business sectors. Like so many times in history, it could be argued that the government does not cause the (post-Asian economic crisis) prosperity/recovery as it is benefiting from it, perhaps even hindering it for its own agenda.

Mind, I don't have a high opinion of the PAD either. It's one thing to present their views in the public, it's another to cause repeated instability for cheap political gains. Of course, it's a country where Fareed Zakaria would no doubt call an "illiberal democracy," so it's not like the PAD is breaking new grounds in self-interested politics. If anything, I see the interventions of the military as a far worse setback for liberal democracy in Thailand than anything the PAD really did.

Moreover, Chiang Mai as a new administrative capital? Are you really serious? It's the center for Northern Thailand, but note the keyword: Northern Thailand. Place it as the administrative capital, and you risk even more of the country being marginalized, or worse, further aggravating the already troubled South. That, and it's a mountainous region and an established city, an architectural nightmare for this sort of prestige/administrative city planning. If the Government of Thailand really wants to pull a Rio de Janeiro-to-Brazilia move, it is far better served by staying on the Central Plains. There's a historical precedent with such a move in King Narai's Lopburi, although anywhere would do. A return to Ayutthaya? Ha! Or Thaksin and his suppoters could just expand the Suvarnabhumi project.