In Asia, many governance systems are still “old-fashioned” and not “fit for purpose” to bring about a change in the way cities can be reshaped, says a United Nations governance advisor at a recent forum on building regenerative cities.
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Speaking at the Cities: Possibilities 2024 conference held in Singapore last week, Diana Torres, who leads the governance team in Asia Pacific at UN Development Programme (UNDP), said that it is worrisome that many of the trends the global network is observing in Asia – including democratic backsliding and the rapid shrinking of the civic space – are not compatible with the bid to improve urban governance and build more climate-resilient cities.
“Some of the models of governance we are seeing in the region are still very top-down, where there is a culture that does not support enhancing integrity and transparency. These could possibly undermine trust, and without trust, there is no citizen engagement or private sector participation,” she said.
“Asia is a very diverse region with different political and administrative systems, but there is still a need for governments to be aligned on key principles that can move the governance of cities forward,” she added.
In the past decade, Southeast Asia saw the rise of varying shades of undemocratic regimes, reflected in the return of military dictatorship in 2021 in Myanmar as well as coups and political instability in Thailand. The region has also not been an easy place for activists, with environmental defenders facing threats, violence or legal attacks.
Torres, who was speaking on the closing plenary session moderated by Eco-Business founder and managing director Jessica Cheam, did not give examples of Asian cities that the UNDP finds to be lacking in their capabilities or political leadership. But other panellists echoed her view that governance fundamentals are not in place for Asia’s cities to thrive, especially in a new era when their preparedness for intensifying threats of climate change matter.
Building consultant Arup’s global advisory services lead Andy Hodgson said decisions on urban development are now “made around political cycles which often don’t look at the long term”. Infrastructure and design projects mostly prioritise instantaneous returns such as a shorter travel time or increased employment rates, which he said are economically-focused outcomes.
“Contrarily, issues like gender and health are not getting onto the paper,” he said. “In Southeast Asia, if you look at project development, the biggest gap is not capital – although everyone says so – but the capacity and capability of governments to make the right choices.”
‘Cookie-cutter cities’
Last month, Arup published a report which measured more than 60 cities globally against 37 competitiveness indicators – of which a quarter are focused on actions that interact with climate change. The analysis, said Hodgson, aims to look at a wider set of factors that are beyond growth optimisation and that could reshape future city competitiveness.
Hodgson said the competitiveness of cities used to be dependent on efficiency, with residents of “super-efficient cities” having a higher quality of life. “But now cities are using the nature around them to become more competitive or to enhance the intrinsic connection to what would make them more liveable,” he said.
“Those that are not doing this are turning into cookie-cutter cities that could be anywhere in the world.”
Arup’s “City Competitiveness Redefined” report rates cities on four indicators, including assets and infrastructure, investor attractiveness, liveability and lovability, as well as urban management and governance.
Cities-related projects the firm has worked on in Southeast Asia include a masterplan study for Bau town in West Sarawak, Malaysia and a participatory planning project on the transport system in Semarang, Indonesia. It is also behind Hong Kong’s Kau Yi Chau artificial islands project, a controversial proposal that environmentalists have opposed as they believe it will come at a huge carbon cost and imperil marine ecosystems.
In its latest analysis, Arup lauded Singapore, for example, for working towards its ambition to become a “city in a garden” and rates the city-state highly across all indicators, though it highlights how it continues to struggle with urban heat. It said Indonesian capital Jakarta has made great strides in improving its attractiveness to investors but mobility remains the city’s greatest challenge, as it has not been able to sufficiently expand its public transport network, despite the construction of a subway system, and solve road congestion problems.
On Vietnam’s Hanoi, the report said that the city is at risk of falling behind its peers in the face of future opportunities due to low scores in digital infrastructure indicators. “Additionally, the lack of climate resilience planning and barriers to unlocking renewable energy potential will inhibit progress as sustainability becomes top of mind for investors.”
Thailand’s capital Bangkok, scores strongly for assets and infrastructure. The report notes that it has a significant infrastructure pipeline, but that the city still has low scores on urban management and governance, which is an area that “requires immediate attention”.
Dr Hossein Rezai-Jorabi, global design director at architecture and engineering consultancy firm Ramboll, said that “technical answers” to creating a regenerative city are available but there is a lack of political will to apply and implement these solutions.
“Or when we apply them, we apply them within a system that is fundamentally going the wrong way,” he said. “We might be running very fast in the wrong direction.”
Using Singapore as an example, Hossein said that the city-state now has “a lot of buildings with regenerative attributes”, but across the region, no real regenerative neighbourhood or city exists yet.
Trust rebuilding
The concept of regenerative cities – broadly seen as urban centres that are designed to have a restorative relationship with the natural environment – is gaining traction globally, though its definitions can still vary.
Dr Winston Chow, co-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN’s global climate science body, said that a regenerative city should have three characteristics. Firstly, it should enable rather than hinder; secondly, it should listen rather than talk or it should be focused on action and implementation; and thirdly, it is built on plans for the future.
Chow also agreed that trust is missing in a lot of Asia’s governance systems and there is a need to rebuild new systems for more resilient cities.
Torres highlighted the principles that UNDP believes are key to improving urban governance in Asia, including the need to strengthen collaboration between national and local governments for better coherence in city-planning. For example, she observed that in Bangkok, the governor has limited authority on transport planning in the city and cooperation with the national government is crucial to drive improvements.
The Cities: Possibilities 2024 forum was hosted by Eco-Business, in partnership with real estate company CapitaLand group, and the event is organised in the run up to the COP29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, that will kick off next week. Eco-Business’s Cheam, in her opening speech, told the nearly 200 delegates gathered at the event that despite progress made to cut carbon emissions in the built environment sector, the challenges that cities face are sobering and cities contribute a staggering 70 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions.
“Yet cities also serve as invaluable testing grounds for innovations that can be refined and scaled. While the interconnectedness of urban systems means that city-level initiatives must align with international climategoals, climate action must be localised,” she said.
