The region's capitals have been functioning as the growth centers of national economies in Southeast Asia, these cities having been established by Western colonial governments as management centers. These colonial administrations appropriately applied advanced techniques for urban planning to create their own management centers while located in these cities until the 19th century. After achieving independence, the new capital cities played a crucial role in realizing industrial policies that were changed from import-substitution to export-oriented ones. Under these changed policies, a number of foreign multinational corporations from developed countries have moved into suburban areas within each country's capital region, causing each to become a so-called Extended Metropolitan Region (EMR) through this process. The EMRs have been considered as the force for promoting growth in national economies. The concept of EMRs was created through the efforts of Ginsburg et al. (1991), McGee and Robinson (1995) and other papers based on the aforementioned facts and mainly published in the 1970s and 1980s. They identified three types urban development, namely those in 1) Singapore, 2) Kuala Lumpur, and 3) other over-urbanized metropolises such as Bangkok and Jakarta. However, if we take into account the continuing regional alterations and economic growth, an alternative typology should be considered. The geographical and volatile economic changes were strengthened within the EMRs and national economy in Southeast Asia in the 1990s. The Bangkok, Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur metropolitan regions can be grouped as one type because of the massive regional development that occurred in the former two cities in the 1990s and Kuala Lumpur during the 1980s was thought to be an advanced model for multi-nuclei dispersed urban agglomeration in the region. On the other hand, in a socialist country, Vietnamese metropolises have been growing under the Doi-Moi policy and in accordance with the development in Chinese coastal cites like Shanghai.