Singapore is world-renowned for its urban planning. While it is enjoying the success of the good planning of the past, it finds itself in the middle of an important shift to be prepared for the environment of the future. To understand the challenges and opportunities, we speak with
Dr Woo Jun Jie. Dr Woo is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, where he heads the Governance and Economy department. His work focuses on urban policy, economic development, and crisis management in Asia.
David Austin: Why is urban planning important for Singapore?
Woo Jun Jie: Urban planning is important for Singapore, really for two major reasons. The first one is space. As we know, Singapore is a very small place. We have very limited land, and we have a lot of needs for this land. We need land for housing, land for transport, land, for defence. So urban planning involves trying to maximise the land that we have and to use it in an optimal way.
So urban planning is important. Effective urban planning allows us to sort of maximise the use of what little land we have. Now the second reason that urban planning is important has a lot to do with climate change. Now, if we go back to 30 years ago when we first built Singapore, it was quite straightforward.
We built a city; we built housing, we built transport. But now with climate change, we've experienced adverse weather events, we had flooding. We also have very high temperatures as many of you realise if you just step out of your offices, so urban planning also involves trying to build infrastructure that can handle all these changes in the weather, whether it's the wind, excessive levels of rain.
And urban planning is increasingly focused on what we call the urban island effect. That means that in the city, the more you build up a city, the warmer it gets, it retains heat. So good urban planning allows us to filter, to push wind through a city and to reduce that heat.
David Austin: How many different disciplines fall under the umbrella of urban planning?
Woo Jun Jie: Well, urban planning in itself is really a multidisciplinary approach and it draws very heavily from the social sciences and to a certain extent the natural sciences as well. An important component of urban planning will be urban economics. So, economics is very important to urban planners.
We are planning a city that is vibrant, that is viable, that provides jobs and services. So, the way that we price the land, the way that we parcel out and sell the land is important. So, economics is important, but cities are not just numbers and, and money, it's also people. We tap on the work of sociologists, psychologists, behavioural scientists.
We want to understand how people use the city, how they move around in the city, and how they perceive the city. So, to give you an example, when we plan for some of our public spaces, like our parks, we do conduct surveys, interviews, and that requires the work of people who are trained in sociology, ethnography.
That allows us to get a sense of what people want from the parks. So, the social sciences are very important, but so are the natural sciences. Before we even begin to build anything, we get geographers to look at the lay of the land. What is the land? What is the foundation of the land? How far can we dig? How far can we drill our foundations? How can we do that?
We look at the climate, the elevation, the weather. And finally, architecture is a big component of urban planning. Architects come in to design the suitable buildings for our climate, for the space. In a nutshell, urban planning is multidisciplinary. It draws from a wide range of disciplines.
David Austin: What are the largest challenges and opportunities facing urban policy and planning in Singapore right now?
Woo Jun Jie: The biggest challenge we face is the high demand for space amidst our land constraints. It is a happy problem. Lots of businesses want to come into Singapore. Lots of people want to live here, but we do have limited land and we need to be very careful about how we plan.
For many years we have been building high rise buildings, densifying our city, but we want to make sure that it is comfortable. So, it is the balance between densification and making sure that there is urban comfort, geothermal comfort, that people can live in relative comfort, can commute to work, get home without being caught in a traffic jam, or huge, very crowded public infrastructure.
So, I think that balance between liveability density is a very important challenge. But herein lies an opportunity, we know that when cities become a little bit denser, there is a certain extent of efficiency involved.
Now you compare it to the urban sprawl you see in other places like California, in the urban sprawl, you need to drive to get everywhere. And that is, well, not sustainable. So, in a city that is well designed, you get to where you need to go by public transport. And in the way that we have planned with mixed use developments in Singapore, if you need groceries, you could go downstairs, on the next block.
That allows for a lot of walkability. So, I would say that challenges are great but so are the opportunities to plan in a way that allows more people to live their lives in a more efficient and compact way.
David Austin: How would you describe Singapore right now on the trajectory of urban planning?
Woo Jun Jie: When Singapore first started, we were really focused on building public infrastructure. We built roads, we built housing, we built public transport, and as the economy grew, we densified intensively. We built up the city. We started building high-rise buildings, and that took place across the seventies, the eighties and nineties.
Somewhere in the 2000s, we started realising two things. One, many of our businesses were digitising, so we needed to focus on the digital infrastructure, high speed internet, sensor technology, whatever it takes for businesses and the government to function using technology. We also realised that the environment is degrading rapidly across the world.
Singapore is not the only city that faces this, but we've started realising that we need to do something about urban heat, about climate change, about carbon emissions. So, where we are right now is that big shift towards greater sustainability.
Now, this has always been somewhat in our DNA, we started as a garden city, city in the garden. Now we're talking about being a city in nature. And you go out to the city now, you see buildings with a lot of greenery on the walls, on the windows, and we call that urban greenery. We are trying to move towards an urban planning process that is sustainable, that is biophilic. We want it to be in touch with nature, to have nature embedded across the city.
Now, as you imagine this requires a lot of planning, resource intensive, and this is where we are in Singapore, in our process of urban planning right now.
David Austin: How can urban policy and planning improve social and health outcomes?
Woo Jun Jie: Urban planning has been very strongly connected to public health, and, and this is something that's gone on for a while. For many urban planners, it was a bit of a surprise when we discovered that when we plan a city that is more compact, denser, where people had to walk a bit more, we realised that public health outcomes were achieved.
People walked more, they drove less. They were healthier. They got in their exercise on a daily basis. Having that helped a lot. And secondly, in a well-planned city, when we are able to reduce cars and petrol vehicles, we do reduce air pollution in the city. That of course depends on a sustainable and green public transport system.
So, in terms of public health, good urban planning can allow people to be more mobile, to walk around, to live in a space that is cleaner. Now, in terms of social outcomes, that is a little bit trickier. And Singapore, we have been trying to build all these mixed-use developments. Now, the idea is that we could let people work, live and play within the same area. You could go to work, you could come home from work within the same district, and we could design the city in a way that will foster greater interaction among residents.
When that interaction happens, again, this has something to do with walkability, about the way that the public spaces are designed, whether they're comfortable spaces where people could sit and rest. So that allows for more social interaction and that builds the social fabric of the city.
David Austin: Now if I'm not wrong, one part of this is the government's plan right now to look at last mile connectivity? And does that include the covered walkways that have been extended and also widening the pedestrian paths? Is that all part of the same sort of thinking that you're describing?
Woo Jun Jie: Yes, well, last mile connectivity is a huge aspect of our urban planning right now. We realise that if we want the citizens to rely on public transport, we need to find a way to connect their homes to that last node of public transport. It's not good enough to get off an MRT and you have to walk for a significant distance to get home.
Having covered walkways sort of shields people from the elements from the heat and the rain. As you know, in Singapore, our climate is one of the biggest impediments to walkability. People want to walk, but you know, when you're walking back home or to work and you're drenched with sweat, clothes are wet, it's not pleasant. So, we want to shield them a little bit from the heat. Having underground connections as well. MRT stations that have many exits that are connected underground. But having dedicated lanes for bicycles, for PMDs and having wider walkways, that helps to make the whole experience of walking a lot more pleasant and sort of reduces the conflicts between users of the walkways.
David Austin: Are you aware of other cities that are making this much of an effort right now to make things so much more comfortable and accessible, like last mile connectivity?
Woo Jun Jie: Well, there are other cities that have done similar work and we do take our cues from many places across the world. For example, cycling is huge in the Netherlands and also in Copenhagen and as well as in London. And when you talk about Melbourne, they do have dedicated cycling lanes.
But the biggest difference between Singapore and all these other places is that we have to deal with our climate. It's no stretch of the imagination that cycling is a lot more pleasant in the Netherlands or Denmark, where the climate is not as humid and hot. But here we have to take the extra steps, the extra effort to sort of reduce the urban heat for people who want to cycle, who want to walk.
And certainly, the pace at which we're building our infrastructure, our last mile connectivity, is a lot faster than many other places across the world. There is a greater sense of urgency here today that we need to get this sorted out and we need to make Singapore car-lite. And to do that, we need that last mile connectivity. So, we've done it very rapidly over the past 10 years or so, and it seems that we are moving very quickly going forward.
David Austin: What kind of advice do you have for citizens who want to play more of a part in Singapore's urban planning journey?
Woo Jun Jie: Well, for citizens who are interested in urban planning in Singapore, there are many, many avenues to enter this space. For one, the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), which is our planning agency, they do have public consultations. They publish these papers, they reach out to the public, so it is possible, to sign on to a focus group or some kind of a public engagement exercise with the URA and what you get is that you get to spend time with our urban planners, and you get to throw about ideas with other citizens and the planners. What they do benefit from this is that they get ideas from the citizens.
So, some of these ideas do materialise into real urban outcomes. Now at a smaller scale, as citizens, we do have a role to play in our urban environment. And as many of you know, during Covid, when we had the pandemic there were citizens who placed sanitising liquids who placed face masks in the lift lobbies in places where other neighbours could get access to.
Now, to me, that is a form of urban intervention. You are intervening in your urban environment. We improve the lives of your neighbours. So that is very much part of the planning process as well. Our urban planners plan to a certain extent and wherever we live in a space, when we use that space, we find a way to co-plan with our planners.
We make that space, we take ownership of it, and we do things that enhance that space.
David Austin: What are some factors shaping the future of urban planning in Singapore and what do you think the biggest challenges are on the horizon?
Woo Jun Jie: When we talk about Singapore's urban planning challenges in the future, I think the biggest looming threat to us is climate change. As the climate continues to be less predictable, things get hotter, the weather gets hotter, rains get heavier, the sea levels rise. We'll need to expend a lot of resources to strengthen our shorelines, to strengthen our buildings, to expand our sewage system so that we can deal with all these sudden changes in the weather.
So that is a big challenge. But there are other challenges as well. Singapore being a small place, we can't avoid being a highly dense city. So, when we face any crisis, whether it is a pandemic or even a terrorist attack, we are going to have to find ways to strengthen our cities, strengthen our infrastructure, so that people are sort of protected from these crises, even if they hit us.
So, I think going forward, the biggest challenge we have is that uncertainty. The uncertainty that comes about from a climate that we no longer have any sense of predictability about, and the uncertainty that comes from crises or black swan events that we simply cannot predict.
David Austin: Could you maybe give us a bit more examples? Any things that have been done that are already showing that they're effective, and then what are the next big things that have to be done beyond that?
Woo Jun Jie: For Singapore we have been trying to deal with that rising sea level. So, we have strengthened our shorelines. We have built polders and that is part of the solution. The other part of it is finding ways to pay for this infrastructure. So, we've come up with green bonds.
The government has been trying to issue bonds that they invest in this long-term infrastructure. So, there is a broad system put in place. And going forward, as the sea levels continue to rise, we may have to contemplate working or living with water. Some parts of Singapore, we may have to have more rivers, more riverways and canals, or perhaps transport on waterways.
So that is something that, well, perhaps 10 years ago we may not have found it conceivable, but today it is a reality that we may need to contend with. And with other challenges, such as a potential pandemic, we have learned important lessons from COVID-19.
During Covid, we converted many of our exhibition halls into makeshift hospitals, healthcare facilities. Going forward, the URA is going to plan for what we call grey spaces. Spaces can be converted into other users. So, a conventional hall, a hotel can be converted into a health facility at the drop of a hat. So that is something that we are planning to do. Moving forward with our limited space, we do need to think about how we can make our spaces adaptable.
Today, this could be a park or a convention centre or a hotel tomorrow. It could be a school, it could be a disaster relief centre. It could be a hospital. So, we need to expand our imagination of what different parts of the city look like and what they serve, what purposes they serve. So, one infrastructure, one building may need to serve multiple purposes, and that I think is something that we need to contemplate and move towards.
David Austin: Wow, that's really interesting, the grey spaces. Is there anything on the drawing board that might actually be built soon that meets this kind of requirement?
Woo Jun Jie: I think the biggest thing that they've been talking about would be many of these MICE or event spaces that will have to be converted into a healthcare facility during a pandemic or into some kind of a relief shelter during a natural disaster. So, designing the doorways, the size of the space, air conditioning, access to water, to data, to electricity, you need all this infrastructure.
Imagine if I was converting a convention hall into a hospital. I need the electricity to run out my x-ray machines, the broadband data to send that data back to the hospitals, and I need the sewage system to get rid of medical waste.
So, we are expanding the infrastructure of many of these buildings that may already be in place.
David Austin: Well, thank you Dr Woo for sharing all that with us. That was really interesting.
Woo Jun Jie: Thank you for having me. As always, wonderful to share my thoughts on these topics.