Singapore can be a model for green cities

Straits Times 30 Jun 10;

DENSELY packed urban cities like Singapore can be a strong lever against climate change, said a guest speaker at the World Cities Summit yesterday.

Mr Peter Schwartz, co-founder of advisory firm Global Business Network, was one of six panel speakers at the second plenary session of the four-day summit. He said that with proper planning, urban density can lead to energy efficiency and lessen the impact on the environment.

He gave the example of how in Manhattan, in New York City, everybody walks because buildings are close together.

But this is not the case across the rest of the United States, where the dream is to own a house in the suburbs and drive rather than take public transport to work.

'When you look at a place like Singapore, what you see is a viable alternative to an effective urban environment where people live richly, deeply, and with a minimum impact on the land and the environment,' he said.

Mr Schwartz, whose research focuses on climate change, suggested that developing green urban cities is critical as they can be powerful tools to reduce the impact of devastating climate change, which he said is the greatest crisis faced by humanity.

In response to a question on whether cities like Los Angeles should start building inwards and upwards instead of outwards, another speaker, Ms Saskia Sassen, said that Singapore is an 'expensive model' for cities to adopt even though it will become less costly over time.

'We cannot simply, I think, for much of the world, aspire to the Singapore model. We have to change our systems rather radically, so we need alternative models as well,' said the professor of sociology from Columbia University in the US.

In the panel discussion, other speakers also touched on topics such as sustainable transportation systems, and the different challenges that developed European countries and developing Asian countries are facing.

Delegates gather at summit to discuss urban transport challenges
Channel NewsAsia 29 Jun 10;

SINGAPORE : More than 300 delegates will gather at the Second World Urban Transport Leaders Summit (WUTLS) from Wednesday to discuss and exchange solutions, ideas and best practices in transforming urban transport.

The two-day summit will take place alongside the World Cities Summit and Singapore International Water Week.

It will also see the signing of the Memorandum of Co-operation between the LTA Academy and the Cities Development Initiative for Asia (CDIA).

This is to facilitate the exchange of information on urban transport policy and planning, and allow the agencies to take advantage of capacity development activities of either party.

CDIA is a regional partnership programme supported by the Asian Development Bank and the governments of Germany, Sweden and Spain.

It assists medium-sized Asian cities bridge the gap between their development plans and the implementation of their infrastructure investments. - CNA /ls