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21 - The Greening of the Global City
- from SECTION 6 - MODIFICATION OF THE ENVIRONMENT
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- By Geh Min, President of the Nature Society (Singapore)
- Edited by Terence Chong
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- Book:
- Management of Success
- Published by:
- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
- Published online:
- 21 October 2015
- Print publication:
- 25 June 2010, pp 387-399
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Summary
To achieve First World standards in a Third World region we set out to transform Singapore into a tropical garden city.
— Lee Kuan Yew, 2000THE GREEN CITY
The two characteristics that define modern Singapore, both at home and abroad, are its economic success and its clean and green image. Few would be surprised to hear that the policies for both originated from one man — Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's first Prime Minister. They might, however, be surprised to find exactly how inextricably linked they were, both in their conception and implementation. In Minister Mentor (MM) Lee's own words, “After independence, I searched for some dramatic way to distinguish ourselves from other Third World countries. I settled for a clean and green Singapore”, and on pronouncing the success of this policy, MM Lee opines that “No other project has brought richer rewards to the region … it was good for morale, for tourists and for investors”, and “Greening is the most cost-effective project I have launched.” No one would quarrel with the effectiveness of these policies or that their successful implementation has transformed Singapore into a garden city that has brought the benefits so accurately predicted by MM Lee. But even successful policies invite criticism and it would be both interesting and instructive to examine some of the pertinent ones. In the 1989 volume of Management of Success, Stephen Yeh concluded that the Singapore Government's vision of a garden city will be one where “desirable economic and socio-cultural characteristics for individuals and society will [be] integrated with the highest possible environmental quality of the city”. This chapter will assess the balance between national economic priorities and nature conservation from the early 1990s by examining the evolving relationship between the state and the green movement in Singapore.
A LACK OF DIVERSITY
Despite the successful transformation of Singapore into a garden city in a remarkably short time, some sections of society have voiced dissatisfaction with, not so much the greening itself, but the manner in which it was achieved. Criticisms have been made on the regimented uniformity of the roadside trees, the monotony of manicured grass verges, the sterility of public parks, the proliferation of golf courses (the ultimate in manicured green), and above all, the loss of nature areas, agricultural land, and other green, open spaces.
5 - The High-Carbon Story of Urban Development in Southeast Asia
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- By Geh Min, Ooi Giok Ling, Nanyang Technological University
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- Book:
- Energy Perspectives on Singapore and the Region
- Published by:
- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
- Published online:
- 21 October 2015
- Print publication:
- 18 April 2007, pp 47-57
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Summary
INTRODUCTION
The response to global competition in the Southeast East Asian region has pitted cities against each other and set them on a development pathway that implies high consumption of energy from non-renewable sources. This means high carbon emissions and a development trajectory that is set to follow those of developed countries in the Asian region and the West.
Given the high energy prices that the world has seen in the wake of several natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the importance of the Kyoto Protocol in addressing global climate change, the high-carbon development pathways that Southeast Asian cities are taking will face major challenges particularly in terms of environmental sustainability. These sustainability challenges are seen in the urban sprawl characterizing city expansion in both the largest as well as the medium-sized cities. Urban congestion with its implications for transport and mobility in the cities has been practically a constant in the patterns of urban growth seen in Southeast Asian. Such urban development trends have considerable implications for urban energy consumption and in turn, carbon emissions in the region.
There has been considerable rhetoric and numerous initiatives seen in incorporating the concept of sustainability into development agendas in Southeast Asia (ASEAN 2002). Indeed, Singapore, one of the member-states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, is leading an Asian Sustainable Cities initiative. Yet the more visible aspects of urban growth and development in Southeast Asia have been the outcome of the race to compete for foreign direct investment and international businesses.
With economies in the region struggling to cope with the fall-out from the Asian economic crisis of 1997 and the phenomenal rise of China in the regional and global economy, urbanization and rapid urban development have serious implications not only for the major cities but also environmental sustainability. This is particularly in terms of energy consumption and high carbon emissions which have paralleled the growth of cities and their populations in the Southeast Asian region.