Connolly uses ongoing urban redevelopment in Penang in Malaysia to provide stimulating new perspectives on urbanisation, governance and political ecology.

The book deploys the concept of landscape political ecology to show how Penang residents, activists, planners and other stakeholders mobilize new relationships with the urban environment, to contest controversial development projects and challenge hegemonic visions for the city's future.

Based on six years of local research, this book provides both a dynamic account of region's rapid reshaping and a fresh theoretical framework in which to consider issues of sustainable development, heritage and governance in urban areas worldwide.