Urban planning is not an extension of architecture, but requires the co-ordination of a wide variety of skills and inputs. Most importantly, planning is meaningless unless it is firmly linked to implementation. The planner's best course of action is to set the objectives of his plan, and use these to determine policy initiatives.

We present results of an empirical investigation and comparison of housing supply in three rapidly growing countries: Malaysia, Thailand, and Korea. These countries offer three contrasting examples of different approaches to development control. Korea has relatively strict control of housing supply. Thailand has little effective regulation of development. Malaysia offers an intermediate case, having adopted in the mid-1970s development control legislation patterned on the British Town and Country Planning Act.