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World Cities Summit Issue, Jun 2008
A City in a Garden
Ng Lang
Singapore’s greenery plan has entered a new phase of development where conserving biodiversity and involving the community will further transform the island.
In the 1960s, then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew mooted the creation of a clean and green environment to mitigate the harsh concrete urban environment and improve the quality of life in the city. This was the beginning of Singapore’s development into a Garden City.
As a result, Singapore’s clean and green environment has allowed us to meet the lifestyle and recreational needs of an increasingly affluent population, and enhanced Singapore’s attractiveness as a destination for foreign businesses and talents. Our green policies have contributed to the transformation of Singapore into a distinctive and vibrant global city.
Going forward, the plan is to evolve Singapore into a City in a Garden—a bustling metropolis nestled in a lush mantle of tropical greenery (Figure 1). To do this, we will be adding more sophistication to our greenery plan, conserving our natural heritage, and involving the community.
A MORE SOPHISTICATED GREENERY PLAN
The challenge of greening a small city-state with a land area of only 700 square kilometres and a population of 4.6 million (and still growing) is space. However, green space need not necessarily suffer at the expense of economic and population growth. While land is scarce, with careful planning, Singapore has been able to commit 9% of the total land area to parks and nature reserves. Between 1986 and 2007, despite the population growing by 68% from 2.7 million to 4.6 million, the green cover1 in Singapore grew from 35.7% to 46.5% (Figure 2).
| The importance of greenery for a quality living environment has been underscored in Singapore’s Master Plan 2003. The Master Plan, drawn up by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) to steer Singapore’s urban development in the subsequent 15 years, incorporated a new Parks and Water Bodies Plan with these guiding principles: |
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Plan for a hierarchy of parks distributed throughout the island, from larger parks with more facilities, to smaller parks near homes, with a guideline of 0.8 hectare per 1,000 population provision. |
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Cluster groups of parks with complementary ecosystems and activities, like wetlands, hill parks, tropical rainforests, and connect them where possible to give a more holistic experience. |
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Bring people closer to nature and, where possible, integrate nature areas within parks. |
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Plan for an island-wide network of green links to connect parks and water bodies with residential areas. |
The matrix of park connectors as green links and recreational corridors among parks is one of the ways to expand green space in the city. The park connector network is a series of seven connecting bikeways or green paths. Our target is to build 200 kilometres of park connectors by the year 2015, covering seven closed loops for recreational walking, jogging and cycling activities. Properly integrated with their surrounding areas, the park connectors will enhance the sense of green space throughout the city. The first loop of 42 kilometres, which was completed in December 2007, is known as the Eastern Coastal Park Connector Network. It allows users to walk, jog and cycle through idyllic coastal areas, six parks and residential heartland areas. This park connector network has been well-received and was the venue for the first night-time marathon in Asia in May 2008.
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