Just over 50 years ago, Marina Bay in Singapore was nothing but a swathe of seawater off Singapore's southern coast. Today, it boasts the Gardens by the Bay, which was part of the nation's plans to transform its "Garden City" into a "City in the Garden." The Gardens were built with the aim of raising quality of life by enhancing greenery and flora in the city, but serve as an iconic attraction that drives tourism dollars.

Beyond that, it is also a model for how a city can balance growth with its role as a key tourist attraction, but also designed with sustainability at the center. The Gardens were designed with energy and water efficiency in mind -- converting horticultural waste into energy for cooling conservatories, tapping into solar energy to light up the Supertrees at the Gardens, and capturing rain in the lakes that is cleaned by aquatic plants and used for irrigating the Gardens.

Meanwhile, Malaysia began transforming Putrajaya, 25km south of Kuala Lumpur, into a green city as early as 1997. It constructed the Putrajaya wetland with the purpose of treating catchment water from the Putrajaya Lake. Malaysia subsequently built community gardens in Putrajaya in 2008, initiating a tree planting program that aimed to plant 900,000 trees across both Putrajaya and Kuala Lumpur. This was not only to increase urban vegetation cover to help reduce outdoor temperature, but to also increase green urban nature for carbon storage.

From creating a blueprint for a green city to rebuilding a city to be more sustainable, we've seen how Asian cities are starting to address the impact of climate change with placemaking. These cities have modeled success and as urbanization picks up pace, the question isn't if placemaking can play a role, but how quickly cities can embrace it as a core strategy for sustainable growth.

This article was originally published on Nikkei Asia on Nov 3, 2024