BETTER CITIES
Your monthly update from the Centre for Liveable Cities
Issue 51 March 2015
VIDEO
Click here for
the full lecture
Building with Nature
A foremost expert in developing waterways and coastal areas
around the world, Dr Ronald Waterman gave a CLC lecture on
the principles of “Building with Nature”. Here, he offers planners
and developers key perspectives and strategies that champion
the natural environment, while providing for economic growth
and other community needs. Read more
PERSPECTIVES
In his lecture, Dr Waterman
highlighted the potential
in developing Singapore’s
coastlines, on the mainland
and on the islands. We asked
participants who attended the
talk to share some of their
inspirations for uses of the
coast. Here’s the editor’s
choice for this issue.
“We can use the coast to:
• develop a Palm Jumeirah-style Disney Sea
amusement park;
• promote houseboat living by building a Palm
Jumeirah-style of docking facilities for the houseboats;
• create a new mode of public transport such as ferry
terminals which can cater to Punggol, West Coast and
similar coastal residents who can then take ferries to the
downtown financial centre for work; we can also extend
ferry services islandwide, with multiple ferry terminals
located at places of interest;
• develop a new tourism facility such as submarine
sightseeing or underwater observatories;
• build a sea water fish farm for commercial, educational
and tourism purposes;
• build a Palm Jumeirah-style factory outlet shopping mall.”
Philip Ching Cua
General Manager
MLC Ventures
Bringing you
Better Cities
The CLC e-newsletter has
reached its 50th issue in
February 2015! Reaching this
milestone, our team has lined
up a series of fresh content
for keen watchers of city
development. Renamed
Better Cities, we will feature
more interviews with global
experts and CLC advisors.
You can also read excerpts
from our in-house studies on
Singapore, and enjoy features
on cities around the world.
Tell us what you think of this
new issue and what you’d like
to see in future issues here.
Pulling in the Private Sector
Copenhagen is consistently
ranked as one of the world’s top
three most liveable cities. For
Tina Saaby Madsen, Chief City
Architect of Copenhagen, in addition
to having a “life strategy” in getting
people to “go outside”, yet another
crucial component is in working
with the private sector — from
commercial developers to investors
and private architects.
“There are a lot of different methods
for getting into the dialogue with the
private sector. [In] the last four, five
years, we’ve been focusing on how
we can have an earlier dialogue
with different kinds of stakeholders,”
she said.
Ms Madsen said, “One of the things
that we’re doing is that we go out and
be a part of a lot of debates, making
a lot of lectures, and having more
public discussion about why we have
those visions, why the politicians are
saying they want a more liveable city,
try to talk to them about the economic
value [of] having this focus.”
The city of Copenhagen has found
that such early dialogue is “a
method of creating a better project
from the beginning,” as can be
seen from plans for social housing,
where highlighting key regulations
and discussing their viability have
benefited planners as well as private
sector social housing providers.
We interviewed Ms Madsen on
the key factors in Copenhagen’s
urban planning successes.
Watch the full interview.
Such dialogue usually takes the form
of lectures, discussions and meetings
at the city hall to discuss various
political issues.
Gearing up for
dry periods
FULL
STORY
OUT NEXT
MONTH!
The recent hot weather has
resulted in parched grass and
receding levels at water bodies
across Singapore — but there is
hope yet for this concrete jungle.
Renowned urban planner Dr
Herbert Dreiseitl suggests that in
built-up Singapore, its buildings
could do more to protect the
country against the effects of
climate change. The Director of
Liveable Cities Lab suggests that
buildings can include more green
features at an earlier stage of the
design process.
“One solution is to share spaces,
and use mono-functional
systems in a multifunctional way,”
said Dr Dreiseitl. “This could
be an area where you hold,
filter and keep the water during
a heavy downpour, but use it
for another purpose during dry
weather”. He gave the examples
of Boston and Philadelphia,
where some basketball courts
The facade of Parkroyal on Pickering hotel is interspersed with
green walls and horizontal balconies of plants. Facade greenery
cools temperatures, attracts biodiversity into the city and
contributes to the good health of people.
and playgrounds have porous
pavements to allow water
seepage; water is the stored
beneath the ground surface
or channelled to a storage
tank. This however requires
“engineers, architects and
landscape architects to work
together as early as possible,
preferably as early as the
design stage, to encompass
all requirements, including
water harvesting and reusing
of water.” Another way to boost
Singapore’s resilience is to
introduce layers of green in
buildings, instead of having just
one green roof, he said.
“The traditional architectural
mindset is to get rid of water as
quickly as possible. Water was
always seen as the enemy,” said
Dr Dreiseitl. “This has started to
change... Water is no longer the
enemy, it is actually our friend.”
Read the full article here.
The Straits Times featured these suggestions as part of an interview with
Herbert Dreiseitl at the CLC Lecture Series on “Mainstreaming the ABC
Waters”, held on 27 February. Stay tuned to the lecture report, videos and
transcripts of the lecture in the next issue of Better Cities.
City Planning for People
measured based on people-centred
metrics such as pedestrian flow, time
spent lingering in an area, and the
use of streets and spaces after dark.
A lively city in turn provides positive
side effects as a city with life also
contributes to a safer, more
sustainable and healthier city.
A vibrant city that is peoplefriendly is a safe city. Cities which
make it attractive for people to
walk must by definition have a
reasonably cohesive structure –
one that offers short walking
distances, attractive courses of
space, a variety of urban functions
Last year,
commissioned
a video on
such asGDF
placesSuez
for meeting
friends,
Singapore,
Sustainable
City,
as
part
of a series of
and opportunities for running
personal
errands.
TheseWe
elements
stories
on world
cities.
lent our support, where
activity
and the Khoo
feeling of
CLC increase
Executive
Director
Teng Chye gave
security in and around city spaces,
an interview,
alongside experts, corporations and
as there are more eyes watching
NGOs.
theresidents
video are
here.
theWatch
street, and
drawn
to events in the city from
surrounding housing and buildings.
Singapore,
Sustainable City
01
A lively city, where most of its
people travel by foot or bike, is
a sustainable city. These forms
of green transport, as well as
other forms of public transport
such as buses, light rail and train,
provide marked benefits to the
economy, resource consumption,
and the environment.
More cities today are taking a human-centric
approach to urban planning. Central to that
strategy is making a city pedestrian- and cyclistfriendly, says Jan Gehl and Birgitte Bundesen
Svarre. Read their essay in page 52 of Urban
Solutions Issue 6 here.
Success Factors for
Transformational Cities
02
A key link between the safety and
sustainability of the city is that
public transport becomes more
attractive if users feel safe and
comfortable walking or cycling to
and from these modes. good
public spaces and a good public
transport system are thus two sides
of the same coin.
Seoul Transport Vision 2030
Not all cities
are created
equal. Some
have an
advantageous,
60%
Success
pedestrianFactors
friendly urban
350
fabric retained
from history,
Nwhile others
begin from
15
a starting
line of more
motorist-centric
11,500
infrastructure
and urban
sprawl. Some
cities leverage
0.84%
on strong
civic cultures
that support
space sharing, while others face strong anticycling sentiments. We share an infographic here
in Urban Solutions Issue 6, showing the success
factors that can propel a city towards being more
bicyclist- and pedestrian-friendly.
Vision
To anchor its new Vi
SMg adopted the slo
“Liveable Seoul witho
relying on cars” as we
three key concepts: “H
oriented transportatio
“Shared transportatio
“environmentally frie
transportation”. SMg
set out an array of de
transport objectives ca
the “2030 triple 30”:
reduction in automob
30% reduction in pub
travel time, and an in
the city’s green space
the CBD from 10% t
From Four Wheels to Two
Effective collaboration between
government and civic society
New York City
Civic campaigns such as the "Stop de Kindermoord"
(Stop the Child Murder) campaign in the 1970s were
backed by parents, anti-motorists and the wider society
to address the lack of road safety.
The Bloomberg administration led
many pilot projects which were
implemented quickly and cheaply
to demonstrate the positive
impacts of pedestrianisation and
bicycle infrastructure.
A major elevated highway was replaced with the
Cheonggyechon Restoration Project, providing active,
lively spaces for the public.
MAJOR EXPRESSWAYS
REMOVED SINCE 2002
FOR CITY TRANSFORMATION
More than
MILES OF BICYCLE LANES
installed in the city in
three years
Seoul
The city continues to implement bold, major projects,
including transforming a major viaduct in the heart
of downtown into an elevated park.
Transformation
through
high-impact projects
Copenhagen
People-oriented planning
YOUBIKE LOSS RATE OF
in last three years
Copenhagen adopts a people-centric approach to
planning through public-life studies and robust
data collection on people and public space
activities. Regular ‘urban life accounts’ also track
the performance of their walking and cycling
initiatives, supporting policy-making and review
with concrete pedestrian and cyclist traffic counts.
Without large-scale provision of dedicated
infrastructure for cycling, Taipei’s success is based on a
strong civic culture of sharing and mutual respect that
facilitates space sharing. Bike theft, a problem that
plagues many cities, is also negligible in Taipei, thanks
to the strong civic culture among its people.
CYCLISTS
use the newly-built
Cykelslangen daily,
15% more than
computer simulations
predicted.
Taipei
Strong civic culture
ot all cities are
created equal.
Some cities
have advantageous,
pedestrian-friendly
urban fabric retained
from history, while
others begin from a
starting line of more
motorist-centric
infrastructure and
urban sprawl. Some
cities leverage on
strong civic cultures
that support space
sharing, while others
face strong anti-cycling
sentiments. We take a
look at success factors
that can propel a
city towards being
more cycling- and
pedestrian-friendly.
Issue 6 • February 2015
Amsterdam
ROAD FATALITIES IN 2008
lower
than that
of USA
Visionary leadership:
transformation
in a snap
illustration
21
If successful, Seoul co
experience a 10% inc
green transport mode
from 70% to 80%, w
reduction in transport
emissions from 1.2 to
0.9 tonnes a year per
SMg hopes to achiev
by 2030.
Seoul’s bold new municipal vision seeks to shift
the city’s heavy dependence on private cars to
a more sustainable, shared, human-oriented
paradigm, explains Dr Joonho Ko, Director of the
Megacity Research Centre at the Seoul Institute.
Read the essay in Urban Solutions Issue 6 here.