Shadow urbanism: public and private actors dealing with real estate development in Phnom Penh, Cambodia

This paper analyses different forms of "shadow urbanism" in Phnom Penh, the capital city of Cambodia. I mainly argue that planning actions and urban spaces productions "from above" depend on multiple informal strategies structured by power relationships between public and private stakeholders. I show that current debates about urban planning logic in Global South cities oppose too sharply urban spaces productions from above and from below, as well as formal and informal practices. These dialogical approaches reduce our capacity of understanding the political nature of the relationships between public and private stakeholders, and the fact that their actions also depend on "actually existing urbanism" that condition their strategies. Firstly, the paper examines how official planners are trying to change the production of a large scale urban project in the city centre. Secondly, the paper analysis how a private developer who is building a condominium project in the periphery failed to impose his will to local authorities. Finally, the article shows that instead of the notion of informality, the notion of opacity is a key concept in the understanding of shadow urbanism practices in Phnom Penh.