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CLC LECTURE
Cities Taking the Lead 26 July 2017
Cities and their mayors are at the center of opportunities presented by a magnetic and innovative
economy, supported by investment in transportation and ecology, and committed to creating an
entrepreneurial workforce – all of which are essential to the success of cities, countries and cross-
boundary megaregions in the future.
Prof Taylor will discuss her work in Singapore as well as a case study of the Denver Union Station
Neighbourhood to illustrate how design vision and shared local leadership can assemble resources and
funding to undertake a transformative project for their city and region. Subsequently, Marilyn Taylor
and Michael Koh will lead a discussion about the increasing and enduring importance of cities in shaping
economic vitality and quality of life that can advance more inclusive and just societies.
Lecture Segment
Mr Michael Koh 00:00:17
Now a little bit about Marilyn. I have known her since the early 2000s
when I was at Mapletree [Holdings] and also at URA. She, to me, is a
hero or heroine, basically one of my heroines. She was the one who
opened our eyes up to large footprint buildings [and] the new
requirements at that point in time, whereby the whole world was
buzzing about trading floors being…catering for the financial industry.
00:00:47
And we in Singapore were not future-ready. So she, together with David
Childs, I think they really helped Singapore and Marina Bay to be future-
ready. Without their help, we would not have captured that that
moment in time when financial institutions were looking for locations,
and Singapore was in the end competitive, because of the plan that they
drew up for us and they advised us on.
Of course, we worked closely with them, we modified the plan but the
genesis of many of the ideas came from Marilyn. She is also a heroine
because during the time I was in Mapletree, we were affected by SARS
[Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome]. Singapore was affected by SARS
though some of you might not know it, and nobody wanted to come to
Singapore. I think the hotels were at zero occupancy. I think my boss,
my then boss who is also my current boss as well, Mr Khoo, he said,
“Come, you will probably enjoy the freshest air ever!” And here were
the two most senior partners of SOM and they said, “Alright, we will
come.” And they came! They braved that period of time in Singapore’s
history to come and advise us on the plan—that to me is totally heroic,
and at that point in time, it was 5% occupancy at the Ritz Carlton Hotel.
So can you imagine that! So I really, really appreciate that.
In addition, she is also my heroine because she’s a champion for urban
mobility. She is a New Yorker through and through, I mean she lived
there much of her life, now she lives in Philadelphia. But she used to tell
me that she walked to work and it’s typical New Yorker style, she would
change into tennis shoes and walk from the station to work, and then of
course in the office put on her high heels. But nonetheless, do we do
that? You know, Marilyn Taylor, the Chairwoman of SOM walks to work
in tennis shoes. (Laughs). So, she’s such a champion of urban mobility.
Well, as a person, she is so bubbly, passionate, full of energy—she’s
really got a dare-to-do attitude, so it’s really an inspiration. She’s always
got such a positive outlook, and gung-ho and recently over the last few
days she got off the plane on Sunday and she said, “Well, I am not going
00:03:13
to sit still, I’m just going to do something.” and that’s after a long flight
from the US. And we kept her busy. We brought her to the nether
regions of Singapore, that’s at Tuas West. How many of you have been
to Tuas West? Not many right? Well, there you go, that’s another
achievement in Marilyn’s cap, another feather in her cap! So we brought
her there and she explored the area.
And then the next day she turned up at…well, she had dinner and it was
quite a late dinner. Next day, she turned up on Monday, gung-ho and
ready for work at 9 a.m. and we made her walk about 6,500 steps. I know
because I counted on my Fitbit. I was hoping we would make 20,000 but
we only achieved 6,500. But nonetheless, you see that’s the energetic
type of person, that gung-ho, just do it type of approach—and she does
it all with sensibility, with grace. And she is ever so nice, and that is what
I love about Marilyn, and I hope you will enjoy what she has to share
with us because she has so much to share. This is just creaming off, just
the tip of the iceberg, I wish you could just stay on and share more, but
we have limited time, so without much further ado, let me call upon
Professor Marilyn Taylor to deliver the CLC lecture. Thank you, Marilyn.
Prof Marilyn Jordan Taylor
00:04:33
So, on with the show. Yes, I’ve been very lucky to work in Singapore. At
the start, my first project here started in 1985 when we worked on the
first [Mass Rapid Transit] Red Line. We actually did the design and
worked together with the RSP [Raglan Squire and Partners] Architects
[Planners and Engineers], and very large engineering firms [in] building
and designing the segment of the line that started at Marina Bay—
although there was nothing there but landfill—and went to Tanah
Merah. And it was my first introduction to understanding how you, with
your short legacy and your extraordinary leadership, have the capability
to set aspirational goals and to bring designers forward who execute
this. I promise you, this is the only place in the world where I have done
clear platforms, clear-column platforms, no columns on the platforms at
all, granite finishes everywhere and the maintenance of the landscape
all around. I mean it is just symbolises [that] when something has to be
done, it gets done well.
00:05:29
We moved onto the airport, Terminal Three, I am very proud of having
an opportunity to work on the master plan for Marina Bay, moving on
to College [sic University] Town at the National University of Singapore;
and now being invited to think about the future of Marina Bay and the
future of the CBD [Central Business District] out at Jurong, where the
high-speed rail station will come. All of those are really rare
opportunities, and I think you too, all of you should feel privileged when
you have a chance to participate in those kinds of decisions.
Just for a moment to put this in context, I want to talk a little bit about
the changing world that we are all living in. Very short, I had planned to
and I will still do: I want to share on project with you, which is a
consummate example of a public-private partnership that worked
together for a long period of time to create a truly transformational
project. The governmental context is completely different than [sic
from] here, but the elements of the project and the accomplishments of
the project, I think are something that you will enjoy hearing about and,
I hope, learn.
And then I want to go back and talk about something that we have been
talking over the last three days of my fellowship which is, we all grew up
when the term CBD meant something. It was the Central Business
District. It was where you went to do your business, and yes, there was
shopping there. But essentially, especially in the latter half of the 20th
century, as residences spread and vacated the core of the city, it became
clear that there were places that hollowed out at five o’clock in the
afternoon, and didn’t provide the kind of all-day round-the-clock, at
least 18 hour, excitement and engagement that being a player in a global
economy demands.
So, it is interesting for me to look at the Denver Union Station project at
the beginning, and then to share with you some of the thinking that
we’ve been doing about the qualities that need to be brought into our
central innovation districts [and] our central mixed-use districts. We no
00:07:30
longer have that focus on one part of the way we live and work, but on
many more parts. So I hope that both of these will be helpful to you.
This last spring, I was privileged to bring a group of our students from
the University of Pennsylvania, who had been invited to come and work
with the URA and through the term, to take a look at the planning for
the changes at Jurong with the arrival of the high-speed rail station. And
of course, the goals are very high—to create a wonderful place to live
and work [in], that will attract an international population; but also be a
place of very much local to Singapore and expression of the values and
the creativity that exists here in this country.
And while we were here, Singapore’s committee on the Future Economy
released its report. And that was very important to us because I could
see for the first time that Singapore, which in my mind was always…had
played and is continuing to play such an incredible role internationally,
was becoming aware of the importance of the Southeast Asia as a
region, as a mega-region, and committing to the construction of a cross-
border project—the high-speed rail train between Kuala Lumpur and
Singapore.
As you all probably know, that’s the first little piece of a grand
connection which leads up through Bangkok, over into China, down to
Vietnam, back up again—and really becomes now, as we hear more
about it and as President Xi [Jinping] reveals his really grand plans, there
is a Belt-Road Initiative that is going to set up a whole new set of
economic relationships here in this region. And you all are well-placed
to capture it. And I am going to hesitate for a minute and see if I can
choose the words. I am personally regretful that we have a President
who isn’t stepping up to continue to play for the United States his full
role and the role that we have had for a long time, but I am here to
represent, as a party of one, the 600 corporations and 100 mayors who
have all said, “We are moving ahead with the Paris Accord [sic
Agreement], and we believe in exchange.” And I can only hold out for
00:09:47
00:11:52
you the fact that if we focus on mayors and cities, and the Americans
who do understand our roles and responsibilities and want to be a part
of interacting with you so that we all grow together, I hope I can help
you accomplish that.
But if we come back to the local for the moment, the work that our
students have been doing this spring has given me a chance to look at
Singapore in quite a different way. There is that whole 20% of Singapore
out to the west called the western region, which particularly has an
exciting new opportunity in that exciting new future with the arrival of
the high-speed train at Jurong. The station itself is like a pebble falling
into a pond. It will have a cascading effect that will extend across many
geographic scales, which in a way, we’ve tried to represent here.
Because the spot in the former golf course, will be the place that starts,
but it will spread through the Jurong Lake District. It can have a powerful
influence on the west region and all of Singapore, and indeed go on to
Southeast Asia in parallel with the ongoing globalisation efforts in which
you participate.
This means from an infrastructural point of view, thank you for calling
me a transportation planner-designer as well, because I have long been
fascinated by the role that transportation does play in bringing us
together and by the way it opens doors to opportunities. And so, we
begin to see that there is a very different map of Singapore emerging. It
is not just the downtown with a lot…with the hinterland on the rest of
the island, but about 20 years of planning and thinking about
decentralisation [and how it] is now generating an opportunity for two
major CBDs or mixed-use districts, so that high-speed rail supports the
port and the airport, and all of the clusters of knowledge, education and
resource [to] come together, creating new economic opportunities.
Case Study Sharing: Denver Union Station
I am going to shift now to the story I want to tell you, which is a project
that I worked on for about 15 years. The citizens of Denver worked on it
00:12:00
for at least three decades. I am…small interruption here just for a
moment, I want to say that I am so happy to see such a mixed age group
here today—and particularly for the younger ones of you, who are just
starting on your career and interning at CLC, or working in the agencies.
When I start to talk about this, this is 25 years of my life and it took so
long to do it, where you are, it seems like a long time. But what happens
is when you hunker down, get the right ambition, put together a vision
and are willing to stick with it, you will have the amazing reward of
seeing these things happen. So, when someone says, “Start this project
now. It may take a couple of decades,” say, “Great!” and go for it. Not
everything in this world, especially what we do, is about instant
gratification. And you and your ability to advise local leaders, city leaders
wherever you choose to practice, can, I assure you, make a huge
difference.
Denver Union Station case study. It is a story that begins with
transportation and a regional transport idea. The citizens of Denver
realised its federal government wasn’t coming up with money, and that
they would have to put together the resources to build a region-serving
transportation—to get people out of their cars to preserve the clean air,
and the access to high quality life in Denver. They realised their intention
of achieving an extraordinary station and a whole new district through
the following qualities and attributes. There was a combined mayor and
citizen will to do this project. It was a big vision which got knocked off
the track four or five times, and [sic but] someone was always there to
pick the railroad car up, put it back on the track and say, “Let’s continue
to go.”
It was intended and it became, by a very different route, a modest public
investment that became a catalyst for attracting considerable private
investment. It created a place where people want to live and work—no
longer the business district, Denver’s too, was quite dead at night —
because they wanted to work in a creative economy with more freedom,
more opportunity to invent, more opportunity to make. It brings out
something that we all have worked together hard over for the last
00:14:42
decade which is the importance of not just pride in square feet, but of
creating places that people can adapt to their own use; and using design
to bring people together to change the way places are used.
It requires thinking flexibly. I sometimes get frustrated in the United
States because in the time between when we put together a master plan
and get it approved, which frequently takes two, or three, or four years,
things have changed so much that the master plan is no longer relevant.
And I think all of us are working together, understanding that what we
need is a framework, a set of principles as guidelines. But really, [what
we need is] the clarity and the vision and the understanding of the
fundamental principles we are trying to accomplish, so that we can
modify those plans as we go and make them the success that they were
intended to be.
And finally, and this is pivotal to the engagement with the private sector:
we have to work together to allocate the financing responsibility
between public and private in a way that both sectors can participate
and can provide and receive the return—provide the resources and
receive the returns, the payback that makes it worth it. How many of
you have been to Denver? Please go. It’s a wonderful place. This is where
the prairie meets the Rocky Mountains. This is [a] slightly telephoto lens,
but not too much. Literally, the Rockies are there, Denver is called the
Mile-High City because it’s really quite a high elevation. But it had for
many decades, had been sort of a minor city in the west. It was a little
way off the transcontinental railroad. There was a spur that came down
to Denver. But Denver, as you will see in the story, has really begun to
identify itself in a very special and significant way.
In Denver, there are about 700,000 people living, and it’s in a region of
about 2.8 million—so that makes it kind of half of Singapore, but in this
very spectacular setting. There is a central city. This map shows the
mountains to the west and the city itself, and the area that we are going
to focus on is in the north-west part of the city, and it is an area of about
00:17:00
50 or 60 acres with a 21 acre station site in the centre of it, and that’s
the focus of this project.
Just a short time ago, that is two decades ago, this is what this area
looked like. It had finally become part of the trans-continental railroad
and there was a massive—in the middle of the city—a massive freight
yard complex, where it was a change point from goods coming in—coal,
lumber, the real stuff that is produced in the American West—came
here and sat and waited. Meanwhile, passenger rail had completely
deteriorated, the station was just a…only a very small part of it was used,
and it was a great vent in the urban fabric, a great hole.
The area immediately to the right, it’s called LoDo [Lower Downtown
Denver], the historic district. It’s Lower Denver. It was down in the flats
near the tracks and the floodplain. But over time, people had begun
buying warehouses and recapturing them, and there was a man by the
name of John Hickenlooper who got kind of tired of working in the
financial industry, and decided that he would buy a warehouse, open a
restaurant and create a brewery. He is one of the heroes of this story,
because this is a man who never intended to run for public office, who
when he realised a great opportunity for Denver was being missed, ran
for mayor, became the mayor, saw this project through implementation
as the mayor; ran for governor, became a governor, and when he had
the opportunity in 2008—when the financial crisis hit—to bail the
project out with a little bit of federal money, he was able to do that. So
the well-placed person who shares your vision, leading from a local point
of view, where you feel totally accountable to the people, and taking
that and rising to higher office, is something that I truly hope to see it
more of.
So this was the scheme to put roads through that would connect the
residential and small town centres to the west, with the main centre of
the city to the right. That half of the land, roughly, would be put into a
park called the Commons Park, [so] that all of the freight traffic coming
00:19:22
through here, the yard would be removed and the mainline would be
consolidated so that the train continues to come through—and by the
way, we are able to run commuter rail on it as well, so that all the
transportation pieces were put in place first, and then this came into
play.
So we had a park, we were able to designate a very significant area of
riverfront housing next to it. The old station with the red star was able
to become the centre of a transport district, and there were multiple
opportunities for development all around in the land that had now
become part of the regular part of the city. But it was a little more
complicated than that, because it was necessary to put in place the
public transportation, which generally except for buses, didn’t exist in
Denver in a way that tied the entire region together.
What do I mean by the region? The region of Denver is 23 separate
municipalities, [where] each one has its own mayor. They all shared the
vision of creating a rapid transit system, means a light rail, a series of
commuter rails, and you’ll see again, some buses that fill the gaps in
that, a connection to the airport, a connection to Amtrak’s continuing
service to the city, and also to the ski train which takes you by public
transportation out to the mountains to go skiing.
But here’s the difficult thing: there were 23 different, completely
separate municipalities. Each one of those had to independently vote in
favour of a half a percent sales tax [increase] in order to realise this
project. No federal monies were available. The first time they did it, it
failed in a few of the cities. Second time they did it, it won in almost all
of the cities. Third time they did it, every single mayor was able to deliver
through the story that was being told about becoming a much more
sustainable, viable and economic attractive reason. Everyone, everyone
came together. It was really unusual at that time.
00:21:39
Five years later, they had to renew it. Five years after that, they doubled
it to not just, what did I say it was, it was a half a percent on taxes that
was put toward financing this, it became a whole percent—and to this
day, they are continuing to renew their financial commitment. It is an
amazing thing in the United States for 23 communities to come
together.
But in addition, we needed to knit the downtown together. Union
Station which is now more or less at the top of this slide ties to the state
capital which is the diagonal piece. It is the city of Denver, and it is the
state capital of Colorado. But they existed as almost separate halves, so
we know we needed to have to tie it together with local transportation
that also made it work for people to move around the city without
getting into their cars.
So I’m going to move along quickly now and say, we did follow the
principle that what we needed to come up with was a strategic
development framework that could be flexible, rather than a detailed
master plan. And as we began doing this back around 2000, we realised
that there were some really powerful adjectives that we needed to
substitute for ones that typically pertained the master plans. We wanted
to be connected rather than thinking parcel by parcel. We wanted to
really take advantage of the citizens’ request that we shift to a transit-
oriented world and away from a car-oriented world. That meant things
were shared rather than individual, flexible rather than long-term, and
permanent and very much site-specific rather than copied.
And this is the plan that we came up with. So you see in the centre at
the very bottom of the slide, the historic building. The wings that had
been torn down were replaced [and] new buildings were added. And the
tracks outside, we created a great train room where people can wait for
their trains—Denver has sun 300 days a year and 14 different
developments parcels were created in the land that had…became part
of the station development area.
00:23:56
The station itself sits like this right at the end of a street, and so we
arranged for public circulation to flow in all around the station side and
continue up to the north-west, and go out to the light rail transit with
development on all of the sites around. So, this shows the track and
platform plan where the train to the plane, some take the train to
Boulder, Amtrak, all of the heavy rail comes in, and it occupies the train
shed.
Over on the left-hand side, you see the mall shuttle, which is a bus that
runs virtually continuously one after another—there is about one bus
per block and it connects the station and Lower Manhattan up to the
heights with the state capital. And in the upper left-hand side, there is
the consolidated mainline, which is where the light rail transit now runs
that is serving all the 23 communities.
Transportation can't be just process. It should also be, as a British
engineer friend of mine said, ennobling and exhilarating. We didn’t have
enough money to build a grand European train hall, but we did have
enough money to create a framework and a fabric structure that
protects both ends of the platform when you are out there waiting to
board your train; but at the same time it is open to the sky, so you can
enjoy every one of the three hundred days a year when Denver has
bright sunshine and feels like a wonderful place to be. This is the
experience standing on one of the bridges that flows through: you can
see, it is a very dynamic space. You walk straight to your train, very easy
on and off experience in a space that makes you feel good about being
there.
But that wasn't all we needed to do. We really needed to create in
orange, a public realm that everyone felt invited to use. And below it, to
create a bus station, so that the areas that weren’t served by the train
system could be served by buses. So, what you see here is the light rail
transit station. It is safe and friendly even at night. It accommodates
more than 110,000 people every single day. There is an easy transfer to
00:26:14
the mall shuttle that you see there in the foreground, and a really
accommodating and pleasant place to wait for the light rail transit as it
comes around and helps you greet the bus.
But that wasn’t all we had to do either, because we had to find a way to
integrate the buses. We didn’t want a large number of buses, we didn’t
want a bus concourse up in the public realm which was primarily
dedicated to pedestrians, so we created the kind of pavilion you see
here. And it takes you downstairs to brightly lit-with-skylights places,
where all buses that were coming into the region have a place to wait,
and also have a place to easily enter the city when their bus arrives. So
here are a couple of pictures of those: this runs underneath the street
that connects the station out to the light rail transit, and provides the
same quality of information and the same quality of service that are
afforded to rail passengers. Here are you see one end of it, there you
see the other end and of it. And this is the walking street that sits on top
of the bus terminal.
So altogether, those transportation investments were just under half a
billion dollars—[US]$488 million of public money was brought together
and already, at the time that the station opened, more…virtually every
site was under construction and we already had realised US$1 billion of
in-kind private investment—which has since then, doubled again. So it
is quite an extraordinary leveraging of public money to attract private
development.
Here you see the kind of master plan work we did. We did massing
studies [where] they were considered general envelopes, each site had
a specific image and plan associated with it, but we were free to let it
change; and in a moment, I am going to describe the organisational
structure. But from the very beginning, from the day we began the
masterplan for the station, the public agencies came together and
selected a master developer from the private sector to work in parallel
with them. It was…it had its rocky moments when markets changed,
00:28:33
when the private development wasn't able to proceed on exactly the
schedule that we had imagined, but the strong interrelationship
between the public sectors who would come together and the private
sector meant that they shared the vision of getting the project done,
and from beginning to end, we always found a way to overcome the
challenges.
This is a much more play-by-play listing, but we were able to attract not
only major corporate tenants, but [also] a lot of independent smaller
start-up firms [with] different forms of living—small apartments at
relatively high density, larger townhouses, all scattered around—
because we had the guidance of the master developer who didn’t do
every project himself but frequently brought in others to make it
happen.
So the station opened in 2014. As of 2015, this is what was underway on
the way to a total of at least four million square feet in the immediate
vicinity. And in those days, it was looking like this when you look down
from above. But what is really important is that this is how it looks: a
dead part of town is now a major attraction, 18 hours a day. There is
wonderful public space in front of the train station which serves both
the neighbourhood and the region. The train station itself has become a
boutique hotel developed by a local investor. That is her name on the
car, her name is Dana Crawford, [a] woman. And in fact, the old station
waiting room is the hotel lobby and within the station, where are you go
out to either side, there has been developed one of the great food,
eating and entertaining places along with some very small-scale retail.
And it’s one of those places that serves one function in the morning,
another at lunch, another when families get together on weekends—
and it goes into the evening when the younger people actually come in
and take it over as well.
00:30:36
Government Entities: Roles and Participation
So how does all this happen? How does government make this happen?
It is an elaborate structure. There were five different government
entities that needed to participate to make this project happen: the
Regional Transit District—the RTD, Colorado DOT [Department of
Transport], the [Denver] Regional Council of Government—which is
called Dr COG, the Centre City District and the Downtown Development
District, all came together. In the beginning, each of them sent their
representatives to the room and we had interminable meetings, and
they began to realise that they needed to coalesce into a single
organisation. So, they formed what is shown here as the Denver Union
Station Project Authority. And that hired, under a design¬–build
contract, a builder, an engineering firm, that delightful group down
there—Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. And I have to say and give her
credit, I insisted on bringing Hargreaves [Associates] landscape
architects. And so together, we found a way. And then there is a local
urban designer, who was an incredible eyes and ears on the streets for
us. This team was able, under a design–build contract arrangement, to
continue to provide the master planning services.
Parallel to it and selected and composed at the same time, was the
Denver Union Station Neighbourhood Development Company, and it
consisted of two different development firms—Continuum [Partners]
and East West Partners, both local and familiar with the region, who
came together and created the master development. They too had their
own architects, who oversaw the plan from their point of view,
defended what they needed in terms of the private sector and the
flexibility to make choices—while we, over here on the left-hand side of
the page, had the responsibility of making sure that the reasons for the
investment, and the quality of the investment was going to live up to the
expectation necessary to pay off the bonds, but more importantly to
meet the expectations that the people of Denver had for it. So the fact
00:32:39
that we…there may be two tones of blue, but we were sort of in one box
committed to work together to get it done.
I am not going to go into detail on this, but originally, we expected to do
the project entirely without public money, without federal money—and
raise money through the bonding capacity and through retail sales. But
it was 2007, in 2008 when we went into constr[uction]…got to the point
where we wanted to award the construction contracts, and it took
longer for the worldwide recession, depression to arrive here. But at the
moment, it was devastating in the United States. With the near fall of
the banks, the Lehman Brothers going under, other financial institutions
in the United States really struggling to hold the markets together, we
needed to find another way to work. And thank goodness, President
Obama passed the American Recovery Act.
John Hickenlooper, by now governor of the state of Colorado, said,
“Alright, you guys are a build–design, contract, you don't have your
documents ready to go, but if I give you 90 days while we raise this
money, can you get to the point where we can get a guaranteed
maximum price?” And again, that is the benefit of our all working
together, so we produced the document, got the guaranteed maximum
price and were actually able to attract approximately the US$187
million, and then able to fund the rest with the local bond funding.
It was tough putting it all together. This next slide describes the market
shift, how we came up with the loan structure for monies from the
federal government; and then the additional loan, all the loan
guarantees that had to be worked out, how the bonds would be repaid,
what the projected—you’ve seen this slide before—what the projected
development was going to be. Thank goodness it came more quickly and
just this last spring, these were the headlines in the Denver papers: “Tax
money beats projections by a lot.”
00:34:56
00:37:13
The monies actually came in so that the debt was able to be repaid
ahead of time, and the monies that had been saved were able to be
rolled over into the next transportation project. So, those of you who
are economists can explain that much better than I, but this is an
example of not only of the local capability to take on the responsibility
for funding, but also to realise that the initial project created funds that
could be re-used again in additional transportation projects.
So why did it work? They bought the land from the railroads. They, the
voters improved the tax and kept renewing it. The master developer
choice was key. The vision, because it was so carefully crafted with the
community, was able to survive changes through the long term. The
process was transparent and accountable, and the results spoke for
themselves: “Taxes paid ahead of time.” So that was great.
And to say this is just an example of the kind of things that happened—
wonderful public space, commitment to bikes, neighbourhood lived in
while it was being constructed and going well. What didn’t we do? That
short a time ago, we didn't allow for this. We didn't begin to realise that
automated vehicles, and in my case, shared vehicles more important
than whether they were driver or driverless, were not really on the
scene. Denver is just barely becoming a transit-oriented city and the
shift to the car is far from complete. But because in our master plan we
had made such a commitment to the public space and made it so
generous, we are absolutely confident that we will now go back in—and
this will be a great place to retrofit with those fleets of shared vehicles
that are going to free us from the obligation of owning a car, and move
us forward into the next world where we can live better together. So
that’s my Denver story. I hope you enjoyed it.
Changing Work Nature: Creative Economies & Co-Working Spaces
Moving quickly in these last moments, over the past few days we have
been talking a lot about, as I indicated earlier, about what’s a central
00:37:22
business district? What are these new high concentrations of workspace
become [sic becoming] and how do we make them more mixed-use?
And this comes exactly at the same time when, as you all know, the
nature of work is changing work radically.
Beginning a decade ago, cities around the world tried to move forward
in capturing the potential of the creative economy, and creating the kind
of co-working spaces that we now see in profusion—and we hope most
of them survive. There are a couple of quotes that I am going to share
from the work that the Brookings Institution did in their Metropolitan
Policy Office, because I think they both have a lot to say, both of these
quotes, about the way we need to work together to plan for more
flexible, more mixed-use and more exciting and dynamic central districts
in our cities.
The first, and this is Bruce Katz who headed that division for a long time,
and his partner Julie Wagner, with whom he worked to do this research.
So, “What’s an innovation district? Well, it is a geographical area where
institutions and companies come together and take advantage of being
physically compact, transit accessible and technically wired, in a mix of
uses.”
Even more important, I think perhaps, is this next quote which is, “In a
little more sophisticated way, locational preferences are changing and
what’s becoming important to people, workers and enterprises, as well
as financial entities, is that there is a very profound link between shaping
the economy, making places and supporting the social networking that
is essential to the exchange of ideas.” In Bruce and Julie's words, “These
institutions, firms and workers crave proximity. The open innovation
economy rewards collaboration, and is really changing in how buildings
and districts are designed. Most importantly, it is becoming more
diverse and better—more and better choices are essential. And it comes
down to things we have valued for a long time that are going to be used
00:39:36
in a different way: walkable neighbourhoods for housing, jobs and
amenities in a mix.”
So just a quick tour around the world. One of the cities that started this
long ago was Barcelona. They had a city architect, they had a city
scheme, they are one of the few cities to have success with the
Olympics. And they began moving east to take care of the everyday part
of the city, and created a very successful innovation district quite early
on.
San Diego did almost the same thing—move into an old warehouse
neighbourhood and use it as the enclosure for the start-ups who then
become the place for the economy to grow, and for start-up companies
to become much more specific.
Boston as a city, looked around at MIT [Massachusetts Institute of
Technology], and Tufts and Harvard and saw them reaping all the
benefits of patents in the innovation economy and said, “Wait a minute,
it’s not just you guys in the universities, we are going to do it ourselves
in our old port area, Fort Point Channel.”
Miami—[the] high-speed rail is coming to Miami, and they have planned
a very large high-density district. One of the interesting things is these
innovation districts started with the thought that it had to be cheap,
probably re-usable space primarily, and now we discover that even
tech[nology] companies can work in density in tall buildings, as long as
those buildings fit their needs in other respects.
My own city now, Philadelphia, has a wonderful collaborative process
going on between the universities and Comcast, our big cable company
that has become an entertainment company that is going to…that’s
become a control-your-life company—and they, together with all of us,
have made a major plan around the train station in Philadelphia where
Drexel [University], [University of] Penn[Sylvania], and the private sector
00:41:31
will be coming together, creating a very special kind of place for ongoing
research and partnerships with high-powered universities and the local
companies.
Sunnyside Yards in Queens, it’s a railyard. It’s like Denver but with a deck
over it, it can be another one of the locations for innovation. Also
existing areas, you have the very large industrial areas in some portions
and including in western Singapore, Chicago was taking a look at it’s
industrial quarter. In the foreground here is a place called Goose Island,
and they are saying, “We need to intersperse directly with industry, with
the industry that is safe, that’s safe to be a neighbour to, and introduce
housing both for workers but [sic and] for people who want to live here.
And this is the work of one of our faculty members showing what that
mixed-use area would potentially…that’s the existing condition, and this
what it would be like.
Best of all, and I highly recommend you go there, is Seattle. What’s
changed Seattle? Microsoft and Amazon are both located there.
Microsoft has chosen a suburban future: they have a big campus,
everybody drives. Amazon made a choice to move into an old industrial
area in Seattle called South Lake Union. It is not…it is a place with
amenity, it is right at the water—you can see Seattle’s iconic Space
Needle there, but they planned for it very carefully. They didn’t just let
it happen.
On the left-hand side, there is a plan that deals with where the retail is,
where the smaller scale infill projects can go, and really sets the stage
for the framework within which this would happen. On the right is even
more important. They knew that they needed to have a range of small-
scale and large-scale development sites. But even more what so part of
Seattle in being there is views to the mountains and the surroundings.
So the drawing on the right, probably too small for you to read,
nonetheless is a set of rules about setbacks. So that as buildings grow
taller, they have to set back and there is light and air coming in between.
00:43:44
So for the first 10 years or so, these are the kinds of buildings that came
there: warehouse-like, new office buildings that jumped the scale from
one and two storeys up to five and six storeys. It was so successful that
Amazon took four million square feet of space here. But they needed
more, so they moved forward with a plan to add this into South Lake
Union. The first building that you see, the one that has a kind of a
reddish-, orange-ish-gold is the first of three major high-rise buildings
that will constitute the Amazon headquarters. Amazon will have, in
South Lake Union, Seattle, 12 million square feet.
Think about it. It’s a huge transformation of a neighbourhood. And it will
be a place where not only they enjoy a very high quality of work life, but
it will be filled with the spaces in between: the little pathways, the alleys,
the lower buildings, the roof terraces, and their own very special…oops,
I went too fast there, but their own very special employee amenity—
which is a giant terrarium almost. It is all the ecology, all the flora and
fauna of the Pacific Northwest, and it is a place for Amazon workers to
go and relax—so far they are saying that they are not going to let the
public in, we will see what happens.
So in conclusion, we need more of you to become more like them. Think
of yourself as the person who can craft vision, create the collaborative
teams, bring in the private sector, adjust as you need to go, and make
sure that you are thinking about the things that we’ve always thought
about as designers—meaning the use of land, health and safety,
opportunity for private investment, but also supporting the notion that
it is going to change life for all of us, which is living in a collaborative
world where we each have a chance to continue to learn, to bring our
skills and to make our cities ever better for everyone. Thank you very
much for listening to me. I appreciate it. Thank you.
Panel and Q&A Segment
Mr Michael Koh 00:46:16
Right, thank you Marilyn. That was highly enjoyable and really, really
informative. I think I learnt a lot and already, I can think of the
application of your idea to some of the projects that we are working on
in our advisory work. Actually it’s…I hope that more of them will be like
you—with all that energy, enthusiasm, and you know, the gleeful
childlikeness when you explained that project, I think that’s so
wonderful.
First, I want to embark on some audience engagement. How many of
you would like to live close to work? Can you put up your hands, please?
Okay about 50%, I guess the rest of you would like to commute?
(Laughter in audience)
Prof Marilyn Jordan Taylor 00:47:01
On what kind of transportation?
Mr Michael Koh 00:47:03
Yes, but on what kind of transportation? And the second question is: how
long are you prepared to commute by MRT [Mass Rapid Transit] or by
bus? Let’s say, how many of you are prepared to commute more than
one and a half hours, both ways? I mean, additional, altogether. Can you
put up your hand please? One person would like to commute more than
one and a half hours. (Laughs)
Prof Marilyn Jordan Taylor 00:47:23
The one who rides a bike.
Mr Michael Koh 00:47:26
But what about the rest the rest of you? You don’t want more than a
one and a half hour commute, yet you don’t want to live close to work?
Where do you want to live? (Laughter) Okay, so how many of you would
like to live close to food and beverage, gyms, coffee places and shops?
Can you put up your hands please. Okay this is slightly more—about
65%. I guess the rest of you like to live in isolation.
00:47:52
How many of you would like to start your own business? Put up your
hands, please. Very few of us, oh my gosh. And I think that’s scary! That’s
scary! Because a country like China is asking the millions or hundreds of
millions of young [people] to consider starting their own business. They
are creating neighbourhoods, innovation parks, innovation districts.
That’s the next generation—the creative economy, the thinking
economy. I tell my children, “I don't think you are ever going to get a
permanent job when you grow up. I think you are going to the
freelancers. I think you are going to just have to just change your
workplace a lot, unless you start your own business.” But yet, from what
I see in this room, very few of us are prepared to take that jump. So the
issue…
Prof Marilyn Jordan Taylor 00:48:43
We’ll ask the question again in a few moments to see if you change your
mind.
Mr Michael Koh 00:48:46
So the issue here, and it is something that has become a mantra and
what I think the case studies that Marilyn has mentioned, and in many
other cities that we’ve seen in CLC—the issue of walkable
neighbourhoods, the issue of having the option of living where you work,
or making and creating and living altogether in one place, Innovating and
building communities of like-minded people, communities with a sense
of place and urban identity. So do we have that? Do we have that in
Singapore? Can I ask your opinion as well? Audience interaction. Do you
think we have that in Singapore? Put up your hands, anyone who says
yes. Two, three people say, “Yes, we have that.” Good, you are positive!
Looks like the rest are not so positive.
Prof Marilyn Jordan Taylor 00:49:39
Actually, I did temporarily.
Mr Michael Koh 00:49:40
Really?
Prof Marilyn Jordan Taylor 00:49:41
I have been staying at the Scarlet and I have a one-minute commute. It’s
so great!
Mr Michael Koh 00:49:46
So there you go, one minute commute. Actually it was two minutes last
night, but one minute this morning…
Prof Marilyn Jordan Taylor 00:49:51
I got faster.
Mr Michael Koh 00:49:52
…she’s grown more energetic.
So I guess that’s the key issue at hand, Marilyn, and a lot of the photos
or the case studies I see that you’ve illustrated also say, show to me that
these new districts are actually very close to the city. They are not
outside the city. Yet in Singapore, we are planning innovation districts
outside the city, creative districts outside the city. So why is that so,
Marilyn? I think it is a difference in thinking and I guess is it because of
mayors wanting to increase the tax base or is it because of the lack of a
regional plan. Why is it that that reaction in the case studies that you have
shown, you have always brought these districts closer to the city, making
it walkable and re-enhancing and reinvigorating the downtown?
Prof Marilyn Jordan Taylor 00:50:38
I think, at least from my understanding of this phenomenon, the first
impulse when these places of research were being created and needed
to go beyond the university to have additional space, was to say, “Let’s
go out into the country, let’s go out to Basking Ridge and Parsippany in
New Jersey, let’s go out to Montgomery County outside of Philadelphia,
and let’s build a splendid place where we can come to work, and work
uninterrupted all day long by any of those external influences that keep
us away from our task at hand for the day. And when the day is over
then we’ll drive home and come back.” Well, that didn’t work very well
because that meant that people were driving long distances, travelling
a lot—and more and more, they came to the self-realisation that they
were working in these research communities that really had no
relationship with the community beyond them.
So fast forward and what starts happening—and actually Bruce Katz and
Julie Wagner have a wonderful book called The Metropolitan Revolution
in which one of the most pivotal chapters, and this is written about 10
years ago now—was the emergence of the science park coming into the
city. Why? You want to see your friends. You don’t want to be isolated
00:52:10
only with the people you work with. You want to have a chance to
connect to others during the course of the day, and in the evening. You
might want to live without a car. Maybe you want to live in the city, and
why would reverse commute be the thing you want to do?
So [here’s] one case in point that I think might bring this home: one of
the suburban science parks had garnered leases from a number of the
major biomed[ical] companies. And those leases were all coming up for
rent, for renewal at about the same time just when Philadelphia was
taking its Navy Yard, which is at the south end of the city, and putting it
out on the market. And the HR [human resource] people in these
companies said to the CEOs [Chief Executive Officer], who were
probably pretty comfortable [and] ready to renew the lease out in these
suburban if not ex-urban park, “Maybe we should ask the employees
what would make them happy? Where would they like to be?” And
overwhelmingly, the majority of people said, “Oh, if we can be at the
Brooklyn Navy Yard,” which was the headquarters for the Urban
Outfitters…is the headquarters for Urban Outfitters, connected by
public transportation, a stone’s throw from the airport, only maybe 10
minutes from all the wonderful restaurants down in the south Philly.
And overwhelmingly, the indication was, “We want to be there.”
So the next question was, “Well, but if we are there, it is going to cost
more per square foot. So would you be happy to have fewer square feet
in which you, personally, are working? You are going to be in closer
proximity, not just when you are out and about in the city but in the
office! Would that be okay with you?” “Oh! Will that be okay with me?
I’d like it if I were working more closely.” So, what I am…the story I am
trying to tell here is, I think that one of the reasons that [sic why] we see
the reconnection back into the city for things that we thought would
benefit from splendid isolation, is that the people themselves who have
these jobs see themselves better situated, better resourced and better
able to do their work in less space, in an interactive place, where they
can reach out easily to collaborators and peers.
Mr Michael Koh 00:54:31
Well Marilyn, the counterpoint to that usually is, it’s all great to have
businesses moved back to the city—the science and the techies and the
geeks coming back and reinvigorating the economy. But I am being
chased out of the city, I can't afford to live there anymore. It’s the issue
of gentrification that Richard Florida has admitted to, because he was
one of those that [sic who] talked about the early rise of the creative
class in the city, but now he has admitted that the rise of the creative
class has created gentrification, people have moved out. It is well
documented in New York where Tribeca, the artists, the cultural people
are there and then you know, Robert De Niro comes in and the whole
neighbourhood goes up and then the artists have to move out and
around it, out of the city in the end. So how are cities tackling this issue
of gentrification and inclusivity?
Prof Marilyn Jordan Taylor 00:55:18
We in New York, have a constant exchange with London because we are
very…same-sized cities and we have exactly the same problem. We
should be building about 60,000 units of new housing stock every single
year. And even as the market turns better and even as the acceptability
of high rents rises in New York City, we are still only building about
30,000 units a year, which means that the problem is getting worse.
However, we have a solution in the back pocket.
And so, I don't know how many of you are following this, but Google
which was very California-centric finally realised that they needed some
New York talent, and they began sending…they began organising not
their C-suite staff, but really their creative task forces to be located in
New York City and in Manhattan. And they made a choice to locate in
the lower west side, very close to the Hudson River. Why? It opened up
access to housing in New Jersey, which was accessible by ferry and by a
very special train service we have called the Path. And so, they took
advantage of creating in those places, a supply of housing.
On the other side of the river, we now have [an] expansion of middle-
income housing into many areas where people wouldn’t choose to live
before. And we are doing it precisely because of the cost reason: they
00:56:46
are living in old industrial lands, they are moving close to things that
have been considered more hazardous. They are doing it because, one,
the city is making a commitment to clean those up but also because
that’s where their friends are. And I do think that those of us who are
used to our more-bedrooms-than-we-have-children living are going to
be absolutely surprised and shocked at the housing stock that is
preferred as we move forward.
The rising generations are generations who want to work hard when
there is an assignment at hand, and who want to take it easier when that
pressure is off—who are probably going to cook much less at home.
They will be the people who use e-commerce to buy things that are
smaller, and probably discardable, and you know what? They might be
right. These may be better ways to live and it will be a way of at least re-
allocating the housing space we have for a more efficient use. While we
struggle wishing, in many ways, we were like Singapore, which we never
will be able to be in terms of providing housing essentially as a utility,
we have to struggle to get it on the market and it’s a big challenge.
Mr Michael Koh 00:58:00
But certainly there are solutions and the market has responded. I am
going to ask one last question of Marilyn and then I am going to open up
to the floor because I know that a lot of millennials…we should ask
millennial questions. Now you have always been helpful and
constructive in your comments for Singapore and we thank you for that
over the years. But let’s hypothetically say that you are the Chief Planner
of Singapore. What is…what are going to be your three key planning or
urban design issues that we should place a priority on? I know that’s a tall
order. Just your thoughts off the top of your head.
Prof Marilyn Jordan Taylor 00:58:39
Well, I’ve had the pleasure of living through part of this transition
already, but I can't help but say it, that I think that when I first came, the
self-definition of Singapore as a beautiful garden island was something
that you looked at and didn’t really touch and didn’t really live in.
Indeed, it was the setting and it was splendid and it was beautiful—but
the thing we heard most often when we came is that, “It’s too hot and
that we can’t be out.” I think that you have made great strides and I
00:59:15
would urge you to privilege it even more: the continuous generation of
the public realm, the claiming of places to walk and bike and simply hang
out and not have to spend money to have leisure time, but rather just
to enjoy those spaces. Taking the bike paths and weaving them through,
following the canals wherever you have them—all of those seem to me
to be an indication that you all are really adaptable in ways that it is hard
for us when we first come, to understanding the times of the day and
the situations of the day, when it is fine to be outside and all of that is
contributing to a much more lively and healthy lifestyle, I think. And [that
is] something that really will continue to make Singapore an incredibly
attractive place for people to come and live, even if we don’t stay here
for a lifetime. It’s really a pleasure to be here. That the work that you
have done in shaping the public realm and the opening up of all the
public spaces, now around the museums, in the civic quarter, and the
extensions of the rivers going along with the cleaning up of the
Singapore River.
But I will unabashedly say, as a second thought, that because you are an
island, it has somehow surprised me how limited the contact is with the
water around. And as becomes cleaner and more viable—I know already
you are moving to take on the Kallang River, when we go west, there is
the Jurong River and the Pandan River and the whole western
catchment area—the work you have done can be replicated across the
island. So, building the public realm and encouraging interaction within
it and also taking advantage of being a place that lives with water, lives
with water constantly on the mind, and it can really frame the life even
more.
I think that the third thing that I would say, is in the efficiency of the
process to attract international financial firms to build more public
housing and even to encourage private housing, it is possible to see
places in Singapore where the mix of scale is being lost. As you know, it
is one of the things I worry about in Marina Bay. Every parcel seems to
be getting bigger and going to its maximum possibility, rather than
01:01:45
devising the means—as San Francisco is trying to do, as Seattle is trying
to do—where the small-scale is retained and intermixed. One of my
favourite pictures of Singapore is standing in the windows at URA [Urban
Redevelopment Authority], looking out over the roofs of Chinatown,
having a conversation with Wen Gin, Koh[-Lim] who did so much to
inculcate that idea that the history needed to be saved—but it is also
the small-scale and the mix of scales that makes this place so vibrant.
When you are walking around in the western part of the original CBD
area, there is a collision of scales and you see them all at same time. And
it is part of the vibrancy that the very small-scale is there at the same
time as the large-scale is. And I would urge you to make not dictated
forms, but strategies by which that mix of scale is always maintained. I
think it will give personality, specificity and identity.
And against such— can I have four?
Mr Michael Koh 01:02:53
Yeah, sure. That’s a bonus!
Prof Marilyn Jordan Taylor 01:02:56
Whatever the new town centre around the high-speed rail station
becomes, it needs to find its own identity that doesn't try to replicate
that of the central business district right now—even as the central
business district in my opinion gets better, as the old and smaller office
buildings are translated into residential. And the same is true as Changi
becomes more of a centre, as the Paya Lebar Airport goes out of service
and becomes still another major community—not everything has to be
a housing estate or a dense office district. These things are better when
interwoven, and I think that you already have the examples where you
are beginning to do this, and you should do more of it.
Mr Michael Koh 01:03:44
Thank you, Marilyn for those words of wisdom. And I think now we
should ask the floor for some questions. Marilyn and I are of a certain
generation whereby we find using some apps difficult. You know, Uber
Eats, et cetera, Grab, Uber Taxi, et cetera. And somebody said to me
that these are actually assisted-living for the millennials, which I find
01:04:09
hilarious. But it is true! Think of [sic about] it, it’s assisting you guys, the
young people especially, in your living, in your lifestyle!
Prof Marilyn Jordan Taylor 01:04:16
That's much better than what someone told me. Someone said to me
that Uber is just taxis for people with credit cards, and hopefully they
are much more than that.
Shaun 01:04:26
Hi, my name is Shaun [Koh] and I'm from Zeroth Labs, we are a small
international development consultancy. So, I actually have two
questions, you can pick the one that you find more interesting. The first
question is about the most famous pair of stairs in the world. You might
have heard of it, it is in Toronto. The city…there was a bunch of stairs.
There was a small hill leading down to a park, you’re familiar with it? But
just for the rest of us, it’s a small hill going down to a park. A guy asked
his city in Toronto to build a set of stairs because there were old people
that were stumbling down this park, so he was really worried about his
city. The city said that it would cost $160,000 to build like a set of stairs,
maybe like five metres tall, and he was like, “We can't do that!” So on
his own, he hired a homeless guy and in six weeks, he built a pair of stairs
for I think, it was $1000 or $600, and it made it into news because the
city found out, and they cordoned it off, and they said, “We've got to
tear this thing down.” So you know that story? And I was wondering, are
there’s any lessons there to be learnt for the people in this room? That’s
the first question.
The second question is about Singapore. So you’ve seen Singapore and
you have got a unique perspective as an outsider, who is also something
of an insider. Is there anything that has made Singapore so exceptional at
doing what it is doing historically, that is a potential weakness in the
changing context that we are in now?
Prof Marilyn Jordan Taylor 01:05:46
So my similar story to the stair, I think illustrates a principle that you may
be getting at. And forgive me for taking kind of a slightly long way around
here. I think we all have spent the last couple of decades figuring out
better and better ways to engage citizens, individuals and pull them into
the decision-making process that [the] government makes. But I think
01:06:17
we are crossing a major threshold right now, which is not just to seek
the opinion and to adjust the plans that we are making accordingly, but
then to ask the next question, which is, “And how would you like to
participate in making that happen? What ideas do you have to bring?”
Two young men living on the west side of New York, looked out their
window and saw an old train line for which the city had granted—this is
in New York City—had granted a permit for demolition. And they said,
“This is too good to demolish. We need to keep it.” And so somewhere
in that process, I got the job of going to the railroads and discussing with
them how we could give them…find another way to compensate them
if they would just release their ownership of the railroads. There was a
whole lot of fun. But the fact is, an idea came from two young men who
engaged a bunch of people. They were fortunate enough to attract the
attention of Barry Diller and Diane von Furstenberg and a few other
people of that set who began to say, “Hey, we want to help make this
project happen!” So this extraordinary transformation of the west side
of New York started with an idea—yes, the city put in, all told, about
$160 million to brace the structure, take it down to replace it, put it back
together again so that the park could be constructed.
But when it was time for the for the next set of improvements, the group
of private investors said, “We’ve gained so much out of this, we are
going to contribute the next funds to do the next phase.” So I think that
it is important for government to look to the people around, not just to
say, “Is this okay?” or “Do you have a better idea?” but “How would you
like to engage with us to make these things happen?”
One of the things that we’ve learnt as we paid more attention to
extreme weather and storms and events that really challenge our
occupancies of certain kinds of spaces, is that the most resilient
communities are not the ones with the most financial resources, but the
ones who have the closest social networks and who could come
together and make things happen. And I think we make a mistake, those
01:08:46
of us who find ourselves in decision-making roles, when we don’t allow
an account for that enough.
Is there a characteristic of Singapore that may be compromising to
attaining the best? I think the thing that I have personally enjoyed and
personally admired most in conversations in Singapore—and I contrast
it for instance to Texas or Paris, where every citizen is very self-assured
that they are doing exactly the right thing, and probably most leaders
are too—you all benefit from a leadership. And it really is a set of
individuals, it’s not some obscure bureaucracy that engages in more
constructive self-criticism than any other set of public officials I have
ever seen. “How could we have done it better? What have we missed?
What haven't we done?”
And I think that this calls for a kind of a new contract between
community and government, for you to recognise that this self-criticality
does exist—and to a certain point, it’s really good. At the same time, as
we venture into new forms of place-making and living that the new
economy is going to be creating for us, as we all struggle to figure out
what jobs are we going to have when so many things will be taken care
of through the new inventions that we make, and we are constantly
doing that, we need to engage in a more trusting relationship. And I
don't mean, “Trust me, it’ll be fine.” That we together are going to do
experiments in which the public sector puts its money forward, the real
estate industry puts its money forward, but every bit as much, every one
of us, every one of us in this room is also an investor in the future. We
may be investing our idea, we may be investing sweat equity, we may
be investing our children's college funds in the hope that we are going
to get it back, and not lose it—I mean all of those, and we are every bit
an investor too. And so, we need to work together to be brave enough
to take on experiments, recognise that some of them may fail, but that
we will learn even from failures.
01:11:21
And more importantly, by doing pilots, by doing tests, by testing new
ideas, we’ll be able to adjust our expectations, make corrections and
move forward to find new, different and better ways of living and
working together. So I think that we need to share a commitment to the
same kind of experimentation that is going on in the creative economy
as we think about how we jointly create the places that we live and work
in together.
Mr Michael Koh 01:11:49
Well, certainly again, words of wisdom.
Prof Marilyn Jordan Taylor 01:11:51
It’s called DIY—do it yourself.
John 01:11:55
Hello, I am John. Wonderful conversation! I wish to ask you a question
which hopefully you can give us some guides, or some wise words [on]
how to go about approaching two challenges we are facing in Singapore
at the moment—I mean there are many, but there are two that comes
to my interest. The first one, is the Smart Nation initiative.
The second one is quite diametrically opposed, which is how to go back
to the hundred-odd communities and make them more age-friendly.
More friendly to the senior citizens. The reason I say that is because at
the moment, we are still talking about walkability. But in the near future,
probably we’ll be speaking about personal mobility, because we have
already seen signs of that in our communities where there are people
moving around in their personal mobility devices. And the best example
I actually witnessed was actually in this small little community in
Cornwall called Mousehole. Well it is spelt “Mousehole” but it is
pronounced “Mozzle” by the Brits [British]. And this is where the…it is a
bit hilly, it is a seaside town [which is] always wet and windy, so the
senior people move around in their personal mobility devices which they
improvised by building a little sort of coverage around them. You know,
they zip at the side down when it’s not so windy or rainy, but when it is
windy or rainy, they zip it up. It’s a wonderful sight to see! I’ve never
seen it anywhere else in the world except in Mousehole.
01:13:37
So I want to see, from your perspective, as we go around these two things,
what are some of the things we need to bear in mind as we explore these
two challenges?
Prof Marilyn Jordan Taylor 01:13:48
Wow, that is a really provocative question. Do you want to join me in
figuring how to go in this?
Mr Michael Koh 01:13:51
You start first.
Prof Marilyn Jordan Taylor 01:13:58
I think the overarching thing I’m going to say and then maybe we can
get into the specifics a little bit more is, the corollary for “do it yourself”
also translates into how we get around, how we move, how we spend
our time. And I do think that the combinations of individual forms of
mobility along with the heavy channels of movement that we are used
to, give us really perfect answers. We are not, and sometimes I get very
frustrated because my friends come up to me and say, “All those big
railway projects that you have been working on all your life, guess we
don't really need those anymore because we are all going to have our
driverless car and we are going to be able to do whatever we want to do
while that’s going on.” And I’m going like, “No, no, you really aren’t
understanding.” We need those big corridors of mass movement more
than we ever did. And no matter how hard we try, we can’t each be in a
private vehicle and jam ourselves into the capacity that we have. But
what…and I never liked this term, but I think that shared vehicles give us
an opportunity to address it, which is the whole question of the last mile.
So I live in New York and Philadelphia. It’s easy for me, unless it is a
blizzard, I just walk the last mile. And so, it is not the big challenge for
me. But that is exactly where the places we have that are lower density,
that are more idiosyncratically organized, there is a new system that is
going to come into existence—and it is going to be that you get off your
commuter train, and you have [it] pre-arranged, maybe because you do
it every single day to meet three of your friends, and there is your car
and it takes you home. Or if you have [it] rearranged, you can get to go
somewhere else.
01:15:57
I think the combination of the part of our trip that we share—and we
know we are going to share with an incredible freedom of choice when
you get off that system and onto the other one—is going to persuade
people that understanding, specifically in the relatively dense cities we
live in, that all of it has to function as a system. And if I am going to make
a pitch right now, I think it is important for city planning leaders to
understand that these structures of shared vehicles are going to be
absolutely another system that needs to be thought of as utility and
available for everyone to use.
Mayor Bill Peduto of Pittsburgh is conducting in his city, a prototypical
test right now with Ford transportation. I think Google isn’t there, Uber
is there, and Zipcar is there, and he is running simultaneously with all of
them different test studies to figure out. But we will be giving up aspects
of our public realm for a system that is designed to make money, and
we need to be sure that it is working for us and that we have the means
of doing the deal that lets people use our public streets to extend this—
not just to those of us who have the credit cards or are young enough
to participate, but rather to everyone.
So I sort of took your question and I turned it around, but I think that
sometimes we forget that this is another system that is going to be
added, and it needs to be universally acceptable, or as Mayor Peduto of
Pittsburgh says, “If it’s not for all of us, it is not for us.” and I love that
statement—“If it’s not for all of us, it’s not for us.”
Mr Michael Koh 01:17:53
And I think that the great thing about the phone because I have some
relatives who are in their 80s, but due to the smartphone, they are able
to do that last mile connectivity because of Uber or Grab. So it’s a
changing world and I think you are right, we have to think about it, we
have to recognise that. Well, I think, and just to tie it back [sic to]
planning and what cities have achieved through leadership. I think we
know a lot about Chicago—Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Paris—Mayor Anne
Hidalgo, NYC [New York City]—Mayor [Michael] Bloomberg,
Philadelphia, you just mentioned. Now these are the rock stars of the
01:18:31
mayoral world. They are truly rock stars who have that vision and the
drive to implement, and they did it. Now how…of course you are a
mayor of the world as well, from all that you say. But how important is it
to have that leadership? What if a city does not have that leadership? Can
the people take over? Are there cities that have succeeded in the absence
of a strong mayor. Or does…it have to go hand-in-hand—strong
leadership, good urban planning, et cetera?
Prof Marilyn Jordan Taylor 01:19:03
You know, I am trying to think of a place that doesn't have a mayor or
an equivalent. I do think that in places like India, where the person who
is called the mayor is really an appointee, in general is really an
appointee of federal government. I think the essential quality of being a
mayor, whether you are called the Chief Executive, whatever you are
called, this position of leadership where a constellation of people
around generally a single person are compelled not just to set the vision
but to do the really hard thing—which is to prioritise them as well, it’s
very difficult for a city to make progress without that collective. Can
other people replace it? (Pause). It’s really hard, isn’t it? There have
been points in time when corporations, manufacturing companies
created their own towns, and it didn’t really work because there wasn’t
freedom.
I think that…I guess that what I would like to see is more and more
people like John Hickenlooper, a businessman running a brewery,
deciding that he had the skill, the vision and the courage to take make
decisions for his city even though he wasn't an experienced politician.
Yes, you need a certain knowledge, but what cities need is that person
who is going to come, be a leader for a time, understand he is part of a
continuum. Once he leaves office, he probably won’t get…he or she
won’t get very much credit, but they will have fulfilled an absolutely
essential function. And I think that we need both to express our views
to government, but also to think from the point of view of what it is like
to hold that position. And if we do that, then can I ask the last question?
How many of you have it in your mind to consider running for mayor?
Think about it. (Murmurs by audience). What would make it appealing?
01:21:27
And then try to make that the way you relate to the people who have
that really incredible, terrible and wonderful responsibility, and who are
willing to be accountable and be acclaimed for their successes—and to
accept blame for what they haven’t done.
Mr Michael Koh 01:21:47
Well, certainly food for thought. Obviously, no hands out there.
(Laughs).
Prof Marilyn Jordan Taylor 01:21:51
Thank you all.
Mr Michael Koh 01:21:53
But please put your hands together. I mean, we really had a good
session. Thank you so much, Marilyn.
[Transcript ends at 01:21:59]
LECTURE INFORMATION
TITLE
Cities Taking the Lead
SPEAKER
Prof Marilyn Jordan Taylor
Professor of Architecture and Urban Design (Current) Former Dean (2008-16), School of Design, University
of Pennsylvania
MODERATOR
Mr Michael Koh
Fellow, Centre for Liveable Cities
DATE
26 July 2017
LOCATION
MND Function Room
DURATION
1 Hour 22 Minutes 7 Seconds
Note:
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expressed therein; these are for the reader to judge.
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