The square mile

YANGON’S circular railway clacks, rattles and chuffs along a 46km (28.5-mile) loop around the city. On the way to Danyingon—a bustling farmers’ market supplying the vendors who dot Yangon’s pavements—it runs through crowded urban neighbourhoods. Then the scent of exhaust gives way to loam, and ox-pulled ploughs replace cars amid paddy fields and rickety thatched houses.

The journey makes Yangon, or Rangoon, seem small and backward. In fact it is booming. Since 1983 its population has tripled, to 7.4m. It has claimed much of the foreign investment that has flooded Myanmar since political reforms began in 2011. Such investment was just over $900m in 2010, compared with $5 billion forecast for this fiscal year. As for the paddy fields, they are not so much timeless as on borrowed time: many sit on land zoned for manufacturing that has lain fallow for want of industry—which may now begin to come.