World Economic Forum (WEF) recently took to Social media to post about Singapore’s new plan for the reafforestation of its city as a whole.
In the bid to do so a new eco-development of 42,000 homes named “Tengah”, which will be Singapore’s first smart and sustainable town, with green features and smart technologies.
Tengah’s plans will capitalize on Tengah’s unique identity and offer residents new living and recreational opportunities. The key features of Tengah will revolve around nature and the community, to create an endearing town where future residents can experience being “At Home with Nature”, as the Housing and Development Board (HBD) of Singapore calls it.
Tengah is expected to house about 42,000 new homes across 5 residential districts, each designed according to its own unique character.
One of the key features is that the development of the districts would be such that they would be “At Home with Nature”.
According to the video by WEF, at the surface level, these city districts’ centers would be entirely car-free with roads and parking underground to make space for cycle routes, parks, and community farms on the ground level.
The residents can look forward to accessible modes of transport within and around the town. They can access neighboring towns or the city through the planned Jurong Region Line, or buses, HDB wrote. The majority of Tengah residents will live within walking distance to a Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) station.
The video shows that the housing and construction would be done keeping in mind environmental sustainability and energy conservation. The indoors of all buildings will all have smart lights which switch off when no one is around.
According to the hosing board, “We developed the Biophilic Town Framework to promote a greater sense of place, better health, and well-being, and enhance the quality of life for our residents.”
It adds, “The framework also guides the development of Tengah town to create nature-centric neighborhoods in a holistic manner so that residents can better connect with nature and enjoy its intrinsic benefits.”
The video talks about Automated Waste Collection. According to HDB, it is The Pneumatic Waste Conveyance System (PWCS), an automated waste collection system that uses high-speed air to transport household waste.
HDB argues that it helps create a cleaner and more hygienic living environment by reducing odor and spillages associated with the manual collection and minimizing pest infestation.
The town will have a ‘central cooling system’, which according to the video will be lessening the Carbon Dioxide emissions by pumping chilled water through people’s homes. This system will be more energy-efficient than individual air-conditioning units, which may result in lower utility bills for residents, HDB mentions.
Moreover, Tengah will get a Smart Energy Management system, where a company named SP Group will develop a software system to optimize energy use and promote energy conservation across the town, and an app for residents to more accurately monitor their energy usage. This will be done as HDB is partnering up with the SP group to use AI and data analytics to monitor energy.
The whole development is separated by a 100-meter-wide eco/forest corridor enabling a safe passage for wildlife passing by the area.
It is part of the state’s new “green masterplan”, and according to the video, the goal is that by 2030, every home should be within a ten-minute walk from a park.
The state is also setting aside an area of 10KM-square to plant 1 million more trees than the 1 million tree plantation drive started in 2020, and planning to triple the city-state’s cycling lane to over 1,300Km.
Singapore is going all in and banning new diesel cars from 2025.
Inspiration for world’s largest riverfront city?
Singapore’s development of Tengah can act as an inspiration for the much larger, 46Km-square compared to the former being only 7 km square, Ravi City Project in Lahore.
Ravi city would be the second planned city to be developed in Pakistan after Islamabad’s in the 1960s, and it should be done keeping in mind the environmental and social demands of the world and Pakistan today.
As seen in the Tengah project, the world is gearing towards making cities more community-friendly than the car-friendly cities world has had over decades. The governments around the world are transforming their cities to be more cycle and walk-friendly, and Ravi City can be an inspired plan in this regard.
On its website, the Ravi Urban Development Authority, the development authority for this project has mentioned that the structure of the city(Ravi City) will stimulate urban renewal with penetrable green belts along with the fields as the main spine of the city called the Ecological Corridor.
It adds, “Plains will feature eco-ponds, wetlands, wildlife sanctuaries, theme parks, botanical gardens, algae ponds while promoting pedestrian commercial green boulevards and major roads.”
However, no further eco-friendly plans for the project have surfaced, which explains the accessibility of this mega project to the citizens.
Ravi city project must thus be environmentally sustainable, energy-friendly, and accessible to people, like Singapore’s Tengah.