Cheryl Lim, Channel NewsAsia 22 Jun 09;
SINGAPORE: Cities worldwide will soon have an opportunity to exchange urban city solutions with one another. That is what organisers of the newly-established Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize hope the award will achieve.
The international award will be given out once every two years.
By 2030, more than half of the world's population will be living in cities. But rapid urbanisation brings with it many challenges - such as ensuring infrastructure keeps up with population growth, sustaining economic growth without damaging the environment, and keeping development socially inclusive.
S Dhanabalan, Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize Council chairperson, said: "Land use, buildings, transportation, yes, these are very important, but how do they impact the people? How do they build a community? These are very key elements to making a liveable, vibrant city."
Singapore has had experience in dealing with these problems, coming up with several successful urban management programmes and policies like public housing and electronic road pricing.
And it hopes to share its expertise and tap into the experiences of other countries to build sustainable cities.
Minister for National Development, Mah Bow Tan, said: "If we succeed, cities can be vibrant, economic engines that improve the well-being of their people and in an environment that is resource efficient and is sensitive to the environment."
The Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize hopes to encourage that by recognising individuals and organisations that display foresight, good governance or innovation in tackling the many urban challenges faced by cities.
It will focus on ideas that can produce social, economic and environmental benefits. On top of that, these solutions will need to be practical and cost-effective and easily replicated in other cities.
The prize will be awarded during the World Cities Summit that will be held in Singapore next year.
Nomination forms and full details of the prize can be found at www.leekuanyewworldcityprize.com.sg.
- CNA/ir
The sustainability challenge
Singapore launches new prize to recognise efforts that reflect foresight and innovation
Leong Wee Keat Today Online 23 Jun 09;
IT'S the great challenge for today's growing cities: How to avoid becoming mere polluted urban sprawls, and be vibrant, liveable and sustainable hubs that offer citizens a high quality of life.
Now a new global prize - emerging from the city-state of Singapore - will accord recognition to the individuals or organisations whose policies and projects epitomise foresight, good governance and innovation in overcoming such urban challenges.
The inaugural Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize was launched yesterday, even as the second recipient of the Lee Kuan Yew Water Prize, Professor Gatze Lettinga, was honoured at the opening of the Singapore International Water Week.
The World City Prize is co-organised by Singapore's Urban Redevelopment Authority and the Centre of Liveable Cities, and comes with a $300,000 cash prize sponsored by Keppel Corporation.
The winner will be honoured in June next year along with the next Water Prize recipient, at the Lee Kuan Yew Awards Ceremony and Banquet to be held during the World Cities Summit 2010 in Singapore.
The new award would enable the Republic - with its 50 years of experience in sustainable development, and successes in public housing and electronic road pricing, for instance - to "join hands with a network of cities to build the sustainable cities of tomorrow", said Minister for National Development Mah Bow Tan.
The emphasis, he added, would be on "practical and cost effective solutions" that can generate social, economic and environmental benefits, and as far as possible, be possible to replicate across cities around the world.
And innovative urban solutions are urgently needed: Some 3.2 billion people worldwide now live in cities, a number that will rise to 5 billion by 2030, said Professor Kishore Mahbubani, dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.
A committee will review all nominations and recommend potential Laureates to the Prize Council, which will then pick the winner.
The nominating council includes distinguished names like Professor Mahbubani, Sir Peter Hall of the Barlett School of Architecture and Planning at University College London and Dr Alfonso Vegara, president of Spain's Fundacion Metropoli.
The prize council includes Temasek Holdings chairman S Dhanabalan; Dr Pierre Laconte, president of the International Society of City and Regional Planners and Mr Achim Steiner executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme.
Nominations for the inaugural award close on Nov 30.
$300k LKY prize for urban solutions
Jayakumar launches Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize at world water meet
Amresh Gunasingham, Straits Times 23 Jun 09;
BY 2050, 70 per cent of the world's population - 6.4 billion people - will live in cities.
Planning, designing and building liveable cities for them is one of the greatest challenges today, said experts at the second Singapore International Water Week conference yesterday.
To encourage more work on projects for sustainable urban living, a $300,000 award - the Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize - was launched yesterday by Senior Minister and Coordinating Minister for National Security S. Jayakumar.
The prize stresses solutions that are practical, cost-effective and easy to replicate, Professor Jayakumar said at the opening of the five-day conference in Suntec Singapore.
'In doing so, we in Singapore hope to facilitate the sharing of best practices in urban solutions among cities and spur innovation in sustainable urban development,' he added.
More than half of the 6.8 billion people around the world currently live in cities rather than rural areas - a threshold crossed for the first time last year.
National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan said that key considerations of city planning included low crime, affordable and high-quality housing, efficient transportation networks, and a sense of culture and community.
'If we succeed, cities can be vibrant, economic engines that improve the well-being of their people.'
Singapore could also act as a living laboratory for cities of the future, added prize nomination committee member, Dr Alfonso Vegara.
'With over two billion people moving into cities over the next 25 years, the challenge of building cities to cater to the explosion will be equivalent to building 400 'Singapores',' said Dr Vegara, who is president of Fundacion Metropoli, a Spanish foundation dedicated to developing innovative urban solutions.
Mr Mah, pointing to the Republic's affordable public housing system and the Electronic Road Pricing here used to keep traffic congestion down, added: 'We are able to showcase solutions that have worked in a highly urbanised environment, some of which can be replicated in many other cities, particularly in Asia.'
The key to Singapore being a liveable and vibrant city was also its ability to build successful communities, said Mr S. Dhanabalan, who chairs the council that will select the prize winner.
'A community is made up of people of different social, economic and educational backgrounds living together, integrated, sharing a common destiny - these can be built into the way a city is planned and built,' said the Mr Dhanabalan, chairman of Temasek Holdings.
The prize, to be given out once every two years, will be awarded for the first time at the World Cities Summit next year. Keppel Corporation has come up with $1.5 million to sponsor the first five awards.
Speaking to The Straits Times on the sidelines of the event, Mr Mah said that for Singapore, its future challenges were to better utilise its limited supply of land, energy and water supplies.
'The next emphasis will be on energy efficiency because it is one of the major constraints for us going forward, not just in terms of price but also in its availability and impact on the environment.'
