Where will people congregate?
As appeared in June's issue of Monocle
As countries modernise, more people will be migrating to the cities from rural towns. Meeting the needs of a rapid growing city population will prove challenging for urban planners as they seek to provide essential amenities such as transportation, food and drinks, cultural outlets, and retail among others. In this round of the Singapore Sessions, we catch up with four industry experts to find out how future urban neighbourhoods will turn out and what solutions are needed to design an urban hub that taps into the global city.
The Session
Click on the sessionists to find out more about their perspectives or read the full session.
Cheong Koon Hean — Urban communities must be sustainable communities. To achieve this, Singapore adopts a comprehensive long-term planning approach which aims to support economic growth, provide a good quality living environment and ensure that we develop in an environmentally-responsible way.
This process entails having to anticipate future opportunities and challenges, balance between competing land demands and manage the use of our limited resources carefully - be it energy, water or land.
Building sustainable communities begins at the local level. Our towns are planned as high-density compact towns which provide a wide range of housing options to meet different needs, and well served by efficient mass public transport to provide good connectivity to the rest of the island. Amenities such as parks, shops, schools, libraries and other facilities are conveniently located to reduce travel, with covered walkways and good pedestrian links for a walkable town. Careful planning of public spaces and place-making initiatives such as the organisation of community events facilitate community interaction and bonding.
Planning for sustainability also extends to our city centre. Marina Bay, the new city extension, is planned as a vibrant 24/7 live-work-play district - with commercial and residential buildings, shops, entertainment, public squares and parks such as the 100ha Gardens by the Bay. The area is also well-served by the mass rapid transit system and a comprehensive network of covered walkways and air-conditioned underground pedestrian links. Every year, some 250,000 people gather here to celebrate the New Year, accompanied by fireworks and the signature skyline of historic and modern buildings. This image epitomises planning in Singapore - developing a fine balance between conserving heritage with new growth, sculpting the city and creating great activity spaces.
Outside the city centre, we are creating new mixed-use hubs. These include Jurong Lake District, a lakeside destination for housing, business and leisure, and Kallang Riverside, a lifestyle and sports precinct. These will provide more housing, generate jobs closer to homes and create attractive destinations.
Finally, we reinforce the existing character of each district. Social memories and 'recognition' are the 'heartware' needed to transform urban neighbourhoods into endearing homes. Singapore has many places with unique charm - historic enclaves like Chinatown, Kampong Glam and Little India, shopping belts like Orchard Road, nightlife areas like Clarke Quay, and our favourite food joints in neighbourhoods like Joo Chiat. We retain and enhance local character through conserving significant buildings and developing urban design guidelines to ensure new developments complement the existing areas. The celebration of local festivals like Chinese New Year at Chinatown, and new events like the Singapore River Festival at Clarke Quay, involve the community and engender a greater sense of attachment.
Therefore, through careful planning on all scales, we strive to make Singapore a greater sum of its distinctive districts and neighbourhoods, and create a city that is enriching, lively and enjoyable for all.
Yes
NoAbout the sessionist
Cheong Koon Hean
Chief Executive Officer
Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA)
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David Wilkinson — Pressure on inner city space which is costly to acquire, develop and market will increase the need for vision to provide integrated service offers that deliver products (goods and services) throughout the day and evening to meet the needs of consumers.
The working and leisure habits of people have changed significantly over the last decade with globalisation, the internet and now of course the economic crisis. People now need to be able to do simple things around the clock 24/7, whether it is to travel across these cities, eat, buy food, receive dental, healthcare treatment or simply get something dry cleaned or footwear repaired. Paying attention to accessible basics is the foundation to future success in these schemes.
Communal areas within cities will offer, eating, walking, sport, rest and recuperation areas and continue to learn from 1st world (far) eastern cities where eating and exercise can be taken affordably and easily - perceived as an essential integrated part of everyday living.
The theatre and cinema also anchor an urban community; culture and access to the arts is critical to alleviate the isolation and tension that become a very real experience for some in metropolitan areas.
Innovative retail concepts will continue to flourish grounded in product and service, the connection between these concepts and the world of art and music will be almost seamless. Performance and static art will become everyday experiences within urban retail space.
Street markets will make a return to urban areas and will be encouraged as a method for local producers to develop this connectedness with local audiences, consumers, and culture.
Conversation will again be perceived as the primary method of communication, mobile telephony and e-mail on the move in these spaces become secondary or at least frowned upon as face to face interaction becomes foremost.
Therefore urban areas that provide access to meditation, yoga, stillness and quiet will be able to attract a premium for their product offers (provided they retail water and enable the visitors to recharge mobile phones, macs and MP3 players). They simply now need to add eating, rest areas and quiet space to increase dwell time and spend; artists will also use these areas to promote new creative endeavours.
About the sessionist
David Wilkinson
General Director
TBOE RU
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Alejandro Zaera Polo — For the first time in human history, more than half the world population is living in urban environments. Rather than producing dispersion, globalisation has consolidated the crucial role of urban centres within the political, economical, social and cultural organisations of the contemporary world.
If the 20th Century City will be remembered by the processes of economic and cultural globalisation and the intensification of flows, transfers and exchanges, the 21st Century City is already emerging as an age where enclaves and borders will acquire strategic advantage over trajectories and extensions.
In the emerging geopolitical order, the global network of cities and their physical geography has become as crucial to provide better quality of life to the world population and construct a more integrative and democratic society as government policies. Within a civilisation in which populations have increasingly weak attachments to the hinterland and to a common culture, the arguments for political, cultural and linguistic consistency are increasingly reliant on the physical milieu, as a trans-cultural vehicle: space has become the most important factor of cultural consistency, capable to transcend languages, rituals and ideologies. The organisation and physical consistency of the city - its form, scale, density and distribution - and the determination of urban densities have now become a crucial social, economic and political question.
If the political forms of parliamentary democracy are structured on representation and dialectics, the correlation between spaces and identities mediated through spatial hierarchies have become the prevailing mechanism of contemporary democracy, which is associative rather than deliberative. In the absence of a common linguistic, ethnic and cultural background of emerging urban populations, contemporary democracy is increasingly mediated by physical coexistence in space and non-representational, affective politics. Social dynamics have become more literally performed rather than represented: the provision of inclusive spaces should not necessarily revolve around staging a verbal debate, but to intensify coexistence and physical proximity may in some instances replace the political discourse and the protocols of representation, and initiate new forms of consensus.
- The informality and programme-intensity of Kemal-El-Fnaa square in Marrakesh may become a better model for a contemporary urban democratic space than the monumentality of Washington's Mall.
- The density of New York or Hong Kong is a powerful antidote to the "ghettoisation", cultural and functional, of the suburban metropolis in Phoenix, Orange County etc... (and a much less energy-intensive urban environment)
- The three-dimensionality of Tokyo's programmatic distribution is more integrative than the sectional striation of Paris.
- The compact public realm of Barcelona is much more conducive to enhance physical coexistence between citizens than the luxurious collective space allowance in Biljmermeer or Toulouse Le Mirail... Sometimes, privatising the ground and constraining the scale of public space is more effective to create an integrating public space than providing excessive public space which is also expensive to maintain.
About the sessionist
Alejandro Zaera Polo
Architect & Educator
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Jamie Lerner — In terms of physical configuration, cities of the future will not differ significantly from the ones of yesterday and today.
Renewable energy sources, less pollutant automobiles, new alternatives of public transportation and communication technologies that reduce the need for travel are pushing away the chaos that was predicted for the large urban centres. The evolution of technology and its democratisation are presenting new perspectives for cities of all sizes and shapes.
The development of a new narrative does not mean people will not wish to meet. What will differentiate the good city and the quality of its communal areas in the future will be its capacity to deal with three fundamental issues: sustainability, mobility and socio-diversity. In terms of mobility, give priority to public transport and use in the best and most efficient way all modes available. I also believe "private" vehicles without private ownership, such as the example of the Velib in Paris will increasingly play a larger role in urban commutes.
Socio-diversity encompasses the need to embrace and celebrate the multiplicity of people with different income levels, ages, religions, races and so on within the city, while at the same time preserving the traits that define each one's identity. This is what will ensure social cohesion, urban safety, and ultimately the possibility of the encounters within the city, the willingness to congregate at its communal spaces - streets, squares, parks, markets, open malls. As of to make it happen, if you want creativity, cut a zero off your budget; sustainability, cut off two; if you want solidarity, make your identity count while respecting diversity.
About the sessionist
Jamie Lerner
Urban Planner
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Recommend this session
DEC 201010
Posted by Vicki, UnitedKingdom
Great series of sessions. I would like to subscribe
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OCT 201024
Posted by Frederic, Singapore
I beg to differ on the well served Marina Bay by public transport. It will be perhaps, but at the time of print it is still a mess. As an expat, I decided to use only Public transport but I must say I have been very disappointed on a everyday use .
The developments I have seen, are constructed before an efficient pedestrian and public transport system are in place. Chaos at Tang's underpass( scheduled for upgrading by 2014 ! ) Closing of the Wheelock crossing, the pedestrian bridge between Raffles place and Collyer Quay closed for more than 2 years.
Singapore in general is building too many roads. Motorists are treated better than pedestrians !
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AUG 201008
Posted by Cameron, Australia
Some of the ideas put forth by the panelists are fine in theory, others not so much.
The concept of 24 hour convenience with 'night markets' and 'convenience stores' is based in fantasyland. It will only lead to erosion of a citys identity and culture. Think about the city you live in. Is the local late night convenience store a family run business with roots in the local community and children who go to the local school and play in local sports teams? Or is it global, uniformly branded store with exactly the same livery, products and opening hours as the three dozen other late night convenience stores dotted all over the same city? I fail to see how this will create a vibrant, lively community
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