As Bangkok booms and the Thai capital's traffic approaches pre-Asian-crisis levels of congestion, the government has come up with its most dramatic solution so far: a satellite city.
Operating on the theory that problems shared are problems halved, Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has pledged to spend 100 billion baht (HK$19.45 billion) to build a shiny new city on about 28,300 hectares of land straddling three districts of nearby Nakhon Nayok province. It would be modelled on the Tama district to the west of Tokyo - a series of self-contained cities linked by road and rail to each other and to the capital.
Bangkokians (and their cars) would be encouraged to move there with cheap deals on property, tax breaks and other incentives, the prime minister said, and would have access to schools, hospitals and first-class hotels, as well as rail and road links with Bangkok.
Initially the government plans to build the city to comfortably handle up to half a million people, but with scope to grow to double or triple that if it proves a success.
The new city has been tentatively dubbed with the uninspiring title Muang Mai Nakhon Nayok (Nakhon Nayok New City), and it will be run as a special administrative zone, similar to the seaside city of Pattaya.
Residents of the capital, however, remain sceptical. 'Would I move all the way out there? No way,' said Vilailak Wittaporn, who runs a hairdressing salon in Bangkok's northeastern suburbs. 'It sounds like another Muang Thong Thani to me.'
Muang Thong Thani is the privately built satellite town thrown up at the height of the pre-crash property boom by Bangkok Land, the property juggernaut of the Kanjanapas family, which also owns the CityChain watch franchise in Hong Kong.