Rapid urbanization in Southeast Asia calls for new approaches to building more livable and inclusive cities. The 15-minute city offers a useful reference point for rethinking urban accessibility, but it is not a universal model. Adapting its principles through gender-responsive planning can help address unequal access to services, strengthen inclusive governance, and better integrate informal economies.
The article contributes to a debate about whether alliances lead to conflict or peace, going back to Thucydides’ Peloponnesian War and its applicability to the modern day. Graham Allison, seeking a structural argument and based on what he and many others view as the main cause of war for Thucydides, popularized the term “Thucydides’ trap” as “the natural, inevitable discombobulation that occurs when a rising power threatens to displace a ruling power.” Allison inferred Thucydides’ trap as a structural logic guiding great power competition, particularly the US-China rivalry. Trump’s…