Mega Harbour sinking: speculative climate urbanism and mayoral power in Davao City, Philippines

Source abstract

In Southeast Asia’s coastal cities, powerful pressures favor land reclamation. Discursive practices of speculative and climate urbanism offer a set of ideological justifications, material infrastructures, and governance techniques to enclose common coastal areas and to build enclaves of apparent climate security in their place. Yet, the complexities of speculative government hint at the possibility of unexpected outcomes. In this paper, I interpret the case of the Mega Harbour project in Davao City, Philippines, which proposed to relocate 20,000 coastal residents to facilitate the reclamation and development of four islands in the Davao Gulf. However, the project was terminated due to concerns about “commercial viability, legal and social implications, and the project’s possible effects to the environment”. Drawing on interviews, news reports, and primary documents, I argue that Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio benefited from a singularly powerful coalition based on decades of family rule in Davao and a filial relationship to the President of the Philippines, which endowed her with broad, unilateral discretion over reclamation policy. The metaphorical sinking of Mega Harbour demonstrates that urban officials mediate encounters between global discourses and local residents according to their personal ambitions, institutional powers, and political resources.