Your concise analysis is right on the nail. I for one have been wondering over the years why government initiatives, more often than not, do not or need not go through vigorous environmental impact assessment (EIA), social impact assessment (SIA), health impact assessment (HIA), traffic impact assessment (TIA) and so on. The EIA, above all, is required by law for all projects of any significant magnitude, such as a sizeable hotel, a hospital, a gas pipeline, gas plant, a road through natural reserves, power lines, etc. However, this metropolis seems likely to be exempted from any formal scrutiny and public input before it is regarded as feasible and acceptable to be implemented.

Hype about building a city complex in rural or suburban areas close to Bangkok Metropolis has been created numerous times without actual implementation, be it the Chachoengsao government administration metropolis, the Ban Na Nakhon Nayok administrative capital and the like. All were proposed without any proper prior study, like pie in the sky that will be shot down sooner rather than later to make way for yet another bright idea. Possibly the only benefit from these was to speculators and insiders to the process.

Innovative as it is, this latest move to establish a city on some 500 square kilometres of land surrounding the new international airport needs a big shot of common sense and engineering sense even before the notion can be publicised. The Don Muang Airport, as it is generally known, is being abandoned primarily because it is thought to be unable to cope with the demands of ever-growing air traffic. It has been stated that the area is now surrounded by so much development that expansion is virtually impossible, hence the need for another, unconfined area and the eventual selection of a new site at Nong Ngu Hao on some 32 square kilometres of lowland.

The move from a "don" (high ground) to a "nong" (swamp) is justified by the above constraints. However, even before it goes into operation this September, the idea for surrounding the new airport with settlements blatantly explodes in our faces. This will force our poor descendants back to square one: a problem like the one we face with Don Muang airport. Then there are the problems with all civil engineering on soft ground (remember reports of differential subsidence and cracks in the new airport's tarmac not so long ago?), traffic volume affecting the airport's accessibility, and proper sewage in a lowland that itself serves as an important drainage area for Bangkok.

As for the noise problem and ecological disturbances along its air corridors, nothing seems to have been thoroughly thought through - if at all - by those proposing the new metropolis. In other countries airports have been built offshore simply because the noise of landing and take-off at odd hours was not acceptable to local residents, ruling out the 24-hour operations required by the growing aviation industry. One example is the Kansai International Airport in Japan.

I have always taught my students that engineers are basically creators - and sometimes disaster-makers if things go really wrong. It seems to me now that we are the lesser evil compared to politicians. They are so blind to constructive criticism that they are willing to commit - even in a caretaker capacity - to something unsustainable by our children without prior study so as to avoid or mitigate probable problems before any real calamity takes place.

Go ahead with your bright idea, my elected politicians, as you think you are legitimately empowered by the majority of the people in this country to do it. But to serve them well you should at least have your hype independently and academically scrutinised together with some sort of public participation before laying out your plans. Let's hope this is not another pie in the sky scheme concocted to serve certain friends of yours, or yourselves.

Wiwat Sutiwipakorn,

Prince of Songkhla University, Hat Yai

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New province promises to bring more problems

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's idea of creating a new province around Suvarnabhumi Airport seems half-baked at best. Surely building an airport doesn't justify making the surrounding area a province - or should we now create provinces around the airports at Don Muang, Phuket, Chiang Mai, etc?

Our whole country is barely the size of the US state of Texas, yet we have 50 per cent more provinces than the US has states - and growing - but for what? The head of police in Suvarnabhumi will have to be a general, to have the same "face" as his counterpart from, say, Bangkok - never mind the great disparity in level of responsibility. Ditto for the Army head, etc. So we add to the bureaucracy - and for what?

Given that the areas around the new international airport are waterbeds, keeping them as part of Bangkok will help prevent floods in our capital.

Thai Rak Thai caretaker Deputy Interior Minister Somchai Sunthornwat said that the province was being created in response to popular demand. Well, many, if not most, southerners would welcome direct election of their governors, which surely is in the best traditions of democracy - yet Thai Rak Thai apparently hasn't heard their voices. Why such selective hearing?

The Suvarnabhumi Airport has been 40-plus years in the talking. Why this rush at the last minute, and by a caretaker Cabinet - which, by definition, should not make policy decisions?

Given the major policy implications of such a move and the apparent lack of reasons for it, we should let the new Parliament decide.

Burin Kantabutra

Bangkok

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Three (silent) cheers for the People Who Love Quiet Club

Re: "Commuters want peace and quiet", News, June 21

Hooray for Panchalie Sathirasas and her People Who Love Quiet Club! And thank you to Pravit Rojanaphruk and The Nation for giving front-page prominence to her campaign to stop the ever-expanding noise pollution that has gripped every nook and cranny of Bangkok - and the country as well!

Skytrain operator Bangkok Mass Transit System Plc is a horrendous culprit. Not only is it impossible for commuters to get up to the platform without being bombarded by the loud and intrusive speakers used by video kiosks and other hawkers cluttering the ticket platform, but once upstairs and waiting for the train we must suffer from the greed of the management, who have rented out TV screens for advertisers to force their products on commuters. And for the past several months we have had to accept this inside the trains as well!

Don't bother to complain to customer service: several colleagues and I have registered at least 50 complaints over the past months, to no avail. Somebody is getting rich at the expense of our right to peace and quiet.

But while we're at it, let's not stop with the BTS. Those who manage every department store, hyperstore, restaurant, supermarket, shop and stall in this city, and even Thai Airways, seem to think that it's just fine to impose TV or loudspeaker advertising, music, irritating announcements, propaganda and all manner of noise and we poor consumers merely have to take it. Just see what happens when you ask someone to turn down the noise.

The din of traffic, crowds, mechanical equipment, etc is loud enough. One of our basic rights as citizens should be the freedom to enjoy silence in public places and venues.

It's a crime to throw trash on the streets, to smoke in public buildings, to release excessive vehicle exhaust into the air, to pollute the waterways. Please help to make it a crime to litter our ears, and help those misguided folk who run establishments to understand that the common denominator should be silence.

And please tell me how I can become a member of the People Who Love Quiet Club!

Another Quiet Lover

Bangkok

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Shamelessness continues because it is tolerated

Re: "Measuring Thai society's threshold for shame", Opinion, June 22.

The article echoed my feelings about these negative aspects of Thai culture. As well as the glaring examples in public life, there are many much smaller acts in daily life which show the common trait of shamelessness among certain people in society.

Some of these shameless people will arrive at a lift where there are already several people waiting and then barge straight into a nearly full lift, getting the only available space. In their cars, they will happily drive up a right-turn-only lane and then, just before the lane tapers out, cut into the traffic going straight on.

This selfishness is tacitly condoned because the people around never challenge it. And because they get away without any objections, the guilty can move on without feeling ashamed.

When I witness this sort of behaviour on the road now I often sound my horn. I know that other road users wonder why I am doing it, but I think that if more people made their feelings known about the actions of the selfish ones, they may start to feel some shame.

A music lover

Bang Phli

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Door is always open for foreigners who are fed up

 Re: "Farewell from a foreigner fed up with corruption", Letters, June 20.

I wonder to which corner of this earth this farang is headed, where there is no corruption, confusion, incompetence, collusion, pollution and what not? I would like to go and tell him goodbye, good luck and hope he will never have to return here.

And those who are asking for English language commentary for the World Cup broadcast on the free television channels can leave with him. Thai is the only official language here - the language most people speak, in case they don't realise it.

If they can't even manage to watch a wretched football game - all right, the Wondrous World Cup, where the English have illusions of winning though they couldn't even score their own goal against Paraguay - without commentary, then they should not be watching at all.

Please, go away. There are several planes leaving every day to take you back to your own utopia, where the grime is grimier (think of the Tube and trains), the government lies more, kills more and cheats more. There you will find football commentary in English.

Sunida

Bangkok