[mikael colville-andersen] i first came to bangkok in the early 1990's as an impressionable young backpacker. the city fulfilled absolutely every expectation i had about a noisy, crazy, non-stop asian city should be like. absolutely every urban challenge faced by cities around the world is amplified here in bangkok. this country is run by a military dictatorship who's also trying to influence urban development and urban planning. there are very few examples from history where that story has a happy ending. this series is about finding the life-sized pockets of goodness in cities around the world. there's still a refreshing insane madness to this place. outside of the comfort zone of this amazing market lies the urban jungle.

- the chaotic mix of skyscrapers, street markets and hidden alleyways, bangkok is a vibrant hub of life, buzzing pretty much day and night. the political economic and cultural centre of thailand is home to more than 10 million people, and it generates 40% of the kingdom's wealth. considered the capital of gridlock,

the city's traffic is among the worst in the world. if it hopes to change, bangkok will have to work around a bureaucracy, that is, believe it or not, even more clogged up than its streets. in fact, the whole country's future seems paralyzed by recurring political upheavals. after years of clashes between rival factions, the military junta took control of the country in a coup in may 2014. it now holds a tight grip on power, imprisoning opponents, controlling information and attempting to change the constitution. the junta also controls the bma: the bangkok municipal administration, the agency that runs the city. and that makes things challenging, to say the least. but social instability hasn't undermined the locals' fierce will to better their city. they're fighting back; not with violence, but with their creativity and ingenuity. duangrit bunnag knows a thing or two about building cities.

he just happens to be one of thailand's most prominent architects, and he loves his hometown's chaotic side, labeling it as diverse and exciting. but he's deeply concerned by the authorities' lack of vision and complete disregard for the things that give bangkok its true identity. [mikael colville-andersen] they think we want a ride.

[mikael colville-andersen] on this river? what's happening around the world is cities are taking them out. they made that mistake in the 1950's and 1960's. paris has just done it. [mikael colville-andersen] where is bangkok going now, with regards to urban planning? the traffic... everybody knows that it's kind of a joke. how do you fix something that is really quite broken? - smiling is a good thing, of course.

but it's not really going to solve anything. bangkok and its population are growing at an alarming rate. it's become very clear that this would be a good time to think things through, to make urban planning decisions for the greater good.

- yeah. clearly, duangrit isn't shy to take on ideas that have nevereen tried in bangkok's unregulated urban transformation. he's working hard to create useful architecture, using the past to make the future. what is this place that you've created here? what would have been the default? just bulldozing it and build something new?

- nowhere is the challenge of preservation more pressing than on rattanakosin island, bangkok's historical district where neighbourhoods stubbornly try to survive, counting on citizens to take a stand for local values. [mikael colville-andersen] we're here with the crew. we just got out of the van. it's all very suspicious-looking

because we're not supposed to film here. the military junta has dictated where we can and cannot film. - pom mahakan is a micro village located on the edge of rattanakosin island. its residents are faced with what i'd call a pretty big problem: they're told they can no longer live here. but hey, they do. and more importantly, they call this place home. [mikael colville-andersen] everything we see here will be bulldozed by the authorities. exactly. because they want to clean bangkok. they want to make a public space. and the government's definition of a public space is just a park. a park? just a park. o.k. no life, no people, no families. no life, no people, yeah. here they are!

- sanon doesn't live in this neighbourhood, but he is truly concerned about the future of this place. that's why he's helping local residents find creative solutions that will allow them to stay here. pom mahakan is one of the few historic neighbourhoods left in the entire city. built more than 200 years ago when bangkok became the country's capital, its architecture is unique. surprisingly, the bma has chosen to just tear everything down and turn it into something convenient for tourists, with no consultation, no plans for preservation, and no intention to compensate the families that have been here for generations. [mikael colville-andersen] the people who were living here, they moved out? [sanon wangsrangboon] they moved out. and then... right, o.k. this one is like: "o.k. i want to leave. i don't want to fight anymore." that's sad to look at that, to think that all of this would look like that in a couple of months. imagine myself, i saw it before.

the same as this one. and then it's gone. it says "public land. no trespassing". but then it's not public land, man! - sanon introduces me to a community leader, a spokesperson for the people of pom mahakan. where many have decided to pack up and leave, others are resisting, working hard to showcase and maintain their heritage. [mikael colville-andersen] how many people are in this neighbourhood now? [mikael colville-andersen] how old is this house? - the kings of the present dynasty are all referred to as ramas, from rama i in the late 1800's

to current king, rama x. e people of thailand actually associate historical periods with each of these rama kings. [sanon wangsrangboon] rama iv. [mikael colville-andersen] rama iv. [sanon wangsrangboon] it's rama v, from rama v. [mikael colville-andersen] that's beautiful. [sanon wangsrangboon] it's the house that was used to make the food for every house. [mikael colville-andersen] the cafeteria. exactly. - sanon isn't the only outsider promoting the preservation of this community. the vernadoc project, led by a group of architects, is drawing up plans of the historical buildings, underlining their value and archiving their architecture, should pom mahakan eventually be destroyed. the hope, however, is that through the living heritage museum initiative, the neighbourhood remains intact,

with the citizens living inside what would become, in a way, an open air museum. but can you actually live in a museum? we want to show them that people can stay in the public space, and the community itself wants to be the security guard, we want to be the gardeners. we don't need to be paid. we would do it for free. i've been reading some of the things that you've written about how the authorities say: "people can't live in the park". and then you give examples from all of these historical areas around the world from finland to korea, saying they do that there.

[mikael colville-andersen] what do you preserve? at what point do you say: "this is somethi that we should keep, this is something we should bulldoze?" it's always a tricky subject, but when you have so much history right here, in the centre of bangkok, this is something that you keep. this is something that you polish and you preserve. the past is right here. it's tangible. it's important to the history of this city, of this country. - while some are fighting to preserve life-sized neighbourhoods, new monster-sized shopping malls are popping up all over the city every year. [mikael colville-andersen] here, public space is a shopping mall. america, you think you're so great at your shopping malls, you have nothing on a city like bangkok. this is where people hang out. there are shopping malls

everywhere in bangkok, and there's more on the way. there will be 600,000 square meters of new retail space by 2018. where does this end? the other question is who is this for? the average wage in thailand is ten dollars a day. these are temples of consumerism focused on a very little demographic group. [thanan lilaonikul] bangkok is made of mega blocks if you look at a map. so you have all these main roads forming large squares, which is counterintuitive to walking and experiencing because you're on a straight line all the time. but if you take the time to actually look at how busy this is, and then sort of veer off just a little bit, i think you'll find a different side of bangkok that i think is more authentic and true to itself. - thanan co-founded the creative district with like minded individuals who envisioned a different future for bangkok. away from car-clogged boulevards and anonymous glass skyscrapers.

together they hope to build on the city's traditional strengths its life-sized alleyways, where the real bangkok thrives. [thanan lilaonikul] here, this is actually a main community market street. this is the true bangkok. it's very representative of many communities around in bangkok that you wouldn't find if you would just go along the main routes, the train lines or the tourist routes. there are many food vendors around. you can see functional stores, like hardware stores. that's actually a fish market right behind, over there. it's like a microcosm of the food scene in all bangkok. you have your roast duck, you have your chinese dim sum shop, and there's a noodle stand there. [mikael colville-andersen] you've got everything you need! in one specific corner. if you don't slow down in bangkok, you just end up passing by the cars, but if you travel on foot or bicycle, you actually end up seeing a lot of historical food places, which is what this area is known for. - you know what? that's just the thing with bangkok's complexity. it feels big and imposing at first, but if you dig just a little deeper,

you discover its essence. the real bangkok, the bangkok of the people, is hidden behind each and everyone of these buildings, whether they're old or new. [mikael colville-andersen] we're 4 meters in and the sound guy is incredibly happy right now, aren't you, sylvain? it's so quiet. instant quiet. [thanan lilaonikul] what we just entered is a very typical, old community in thailand. it's called a trok. and a trok usually refers to communities that have pathways, where cars cannot come in. what are all these places along here? they're so neat! they're shop houses. they both use them as their homes, and when they open them up, some days they just put out some things to sell. so that's how a lot of the communities in thailand are, especially in these trok. and what's interesting about this one is that ticketing booth for an old cinema, built pre-war as a community stand-alone cinema, in the early 1920's or 1930's, probably. it's completely wrapped around and hidn by shop houses on all sides. so you will never know that it's here in bangkok,

even though it exists. you want to come in? [mikael colville-andersen] be still my cinematic heart! hidden in bangkok. this is it, right here. it was recently opened up because the government actually owns all of these shop houses and the cinema. and they were renovating, so they've been using this as the construction storage space. [mikael colville-andersen] this woman is just selling... she just opened the door and said: "yeah, here's a fridge! i'm selling cold drinks." [thanan lilaonikul] i think that's a very thai perspective of public land, or land that's owned by the government. in the west, i think where there's public space, people think of it in terms of parks, and: "this is my space to walk, this is my space to ride a bike." but in thailand, it's very interesting. they tend to think of it as a spot where they can set up a shop. and you see that all over bangkok, right? even where we were walking, in the area, so many vendors are taking up public space. it's part of the culture.

they feel a sense of ownership. that's the first step to maintaining citizen control of the city, right? look at this! piles and piles of old film reels! look at all the cinema history! you want to open them all up and find out what they are. all the stories that are hidden here, you know? all the generations of films that people were sitting in the cinema and watching. it's that right there. that is wild. [thanan lilaonikul] hidden in bangkok for you. [mikael colville-andersen] what are the plans for this building? [thanan lilaonikul] the government recently just opened it up to public bidding, to lease the space. my group, the creative district foundation, we actually sent an anthropologist to walk around this neighbourhood and community, to talk to people without them knowing that it's from us, so that we can get a neutral viewpoint from them, and ask them what they want. and a lot of them felt that this could be a community centre again.

they can gather to have their own health checkups, or classes and all those things. so in order to achieve that, we were hoping that it would also become a flexible event space, right? bring different kinds of people to experience the hidden bangkok, as well as meeting people from the neighbourhood. we're in her hood. that's her house right there. here? that's a short commute. so yeah... i think you're beginning to get a sense of the closeness of this community in terms of space and i think in terms of people just walking by, greeting each other, hanging out right here. [mikael colville-andersen] this is a city that is sorely lacking in basic transport options. they've placed a lot of money on a last-century horse: the automobile. there's a couple of really badly designed train lines

that don't connect up very well, and still, they're over capacity. the people of the city are desperate for better transport options. - the problem is, of course, worse for people living in poor and more remote communities. ironically, the people of lat phrao see a solution to an important issue every single day in their own backyard. yangyong long has documented this community's project for better transportation in a book called handmade transit. [yangyong boon-long] we're on lat phrao canal, which runs north and south. normally, if you take the car in the morning, like rush hour, it would take morehan two hours in traffic. you'd get stuck here. we're experimenting with some boat transit. it takes less than half an hour, because the boat is traffic free. how many people live in this neighbourhood?

each household has around five people. o.k. like 50,000 people? that's a lot of people. [mikael colville-andersen] here's our ride man. i'm getting in. - the need to get to work faster has pushed locals to create their own makeshift waterbus with a cargo boat. they're breaking stereotypes in a city that generally associates boats with the lower classes. but things haven't always been this way. with more than 1000 canals, bangkok was once named "the venice of the east". over the past decades, however, this amazing network of waterways has nearly been forgotten. with an increasing population, and simply no more space for cars, people are now turning back to the canals for transportation... and that is exciting. [mikael colville-andersen] how many kilometers of canals are there in bangkok? almost 2000. but not all of them are useable.

some of them are really small waterways. we just passed one back there. super narrow. right. but we survey around 34 canals are useable. there's a lot of canals that are intersecting bts lines. right. yeah. intersecting is very important, because if it goes parallel to the metro, there's no need to open it. but if it intersects, then you should connect them. like for examples, you have two piers, right? then, that's one connectivity. maybe this one is a metro. but if you add three more piers, you don't need to increase the connectivity by three times. you can increase it much more. it's exponential. you increase it by ten times, just by adding three knots. so how many people could we effectively move down this canal on a daily basis? 40,000 people per day. 40,000? per day, yeah. you can see it now on saen saep canal, which can hold up to 60,000 people per day. that's actually more than the new mrt purple line that just opened. - that completely blows my mind. these existing canals are proving to be more efficient than an expensive new subway line.

but not everyone sees things with the same pragmatism. we're illegal right now. we're not supposed to be running boats without a license. is that how it works here? somebody gets an idea and it develops, and then they go upwards? yeah. for the case of motorcycle taxis, for example, it started out with a community leader driving illegally, taking passengers from the end of the alleyway to the main street. that's actually a really efficient way to get around bangkok, i've understood. actually, motorcycle taxi, if you look closely, it's a brt system. it has a lane between the cars, right? and that lane is trying to break free. so even when you're stuck, even if you're stuck indefinitely, the motorcycle taxi can still zigzag along the cars, and it's actually the largest brt system. we have over 4 to 6 million people per day. that's great. a bus rapid transit system with separated lanes. with only one person. yeah, but still. when you have 4 to 6 million people use that... collectively, it's a brt system. - and so this canal hopes to become a legal way to make life simpler, like the saen saep canal did,

with the help of the community who will benefit from better services. having to work outside the system constantly creates sort of a rebellious culture. culture of debate and argument exists in these kinds of communities. but when you go in an established system, it's more like a culture of respect andbedience. like innovation, interestingly, is on the streets, because the culture of argument fosters and nurtures innovation on the streets. are the policy makers receptive to that? actually, they are right now. there's a lot of media attention to what he's doing. this canal will connect you to the new metro in two years. imagine this area. the economy activity will be enormous.

we'll have bazaars, you can have breakfast, sellers. and this is right in the middle of the city. it feels like a different world, like going through a forest. in the future, you can commute to work like this, in a more enclosed vault. it will be nice. [yangyong boon-long] perfect. [mikael colville-andersen] hop right here. you have your river transport, there's also a road here. there are motorcycle taxis. you have a marketplace. this is the village that we've had for 7000 years all in one spot. - to say that cycling in bangkok isn't easy is an understatement. the utter dominance of the automobile has left thai cyclists with very few options, and little has been done to change this in recent years. this lovely stretch of bicycle infrastructure, where does it go? does it go anywhere important from anywhere useful?

- and he is not even kidding. like the rest of the public transit infrastructure here, it seems no one has given any thought to the purpose of the lanes, which is, let me remind you, to get people from point a to point b. [mikael colville-andersen] so how long is this stretch? so it's status? oh no, the party's ending now. we have to walk? it's kind of ironic to ride down this beautiful cycle track and end here. you just hear the scooters, man...

like angry hornets and they're ready to attack. [mikael colville-andersen] you just have to go, right? let's go. - all of this begs to question: is it too late? has bangkok been developed so erraticly that cycling will remain a marginal solution to gridlock? can the bicycle ever become a safe way to get around in this city? when you're doing your meetings around town, the bike is just... you're there before everybody else. what does the city need to get people to ride a bicycle for transportation? policy. are you an optimist about the future of urban cycling in bangkok?

so this is the main street, sukhumvit, and we've seen the bike lane up on the sidewalk and random pictograms with fading paint and no bikes at all. i've cycled in 75 cities around the world. i can't imagine having to ride your bike up on the sidewalk. if you want to ride a bike, you have to do it here, run the gauntlet of the traffic. you have to experience this in order to make cities better. [mikael colville-andersen] there's a shocking lack of green space in bangkok. the temperature in this city is much higher than other cities in the region, simply because they don't have the benefit of the cooling effect of foliage. on top of that, the trees that do exist on the urban landscape are not taken care of very well. there's a lack of knowledge about how to take care

of urban trees. and i'm going to meet some good people who are trying to change that. [mikael colville-andersen] hi! oraya! [oraya sutabutr] you can see that this is one of the professional arborists in our team. this is from the electricity party. because when you're not watching, they take these big knives, and they just cut like this without looking at each particular branch. these are weak branches that actually came out of a poor pruning job. today, we're here on this street. it's not even where we live, but we're spending the whole day with the professionals. [mikael colville-andersen] to me, that's the essence of your volunteer group. you're just a group of citizens and you're training, you just said the "professionals", but you're actually training the professionals to take care of trees. - until just a few years ago, oraya didn't know a thing about trees. but after eye-opening studies in canada,

she returned home and co-founded big trees, a volunteer group that organizes training sessions for municipal workers. they hire professional arborists and rent the necessary equipment to make it all happen. [oraya sutabutr] even though montreal is a big city, there are so many big parks, there are big trees along the streets. you can actually breathe. here, we have so few public parks, we have so few trees along the streets. and that's why it's so hot and polluted, and not pleasant to walk on the streets. it's actually the residents who are living in this area who are helping to pay for them to come out. it's not even government budget. when they see this tree in front of their house, and one day, it's gone. or it has been hacked almost to death. then after a number of years, it's like an army of people