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Seeding the Garden City
A Newsweek in January 2006 article describes Singapore as ‘setting the pace’ in city greening. The writer noted that we are far ahead of other countries in building a distinctive city and attributed this to the far sighted and systemic approach the Singapore government adopts in urban planning. The blossoming of this Garden City did not happen by chance. It is a result of longterm and forward-looking planning. In the 1960s, as Singapore began to industrialise rapidly, our then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew did not want Singapore to develop into a grey and concrete city. He believed that “a blighted urban jungle of concrete destroys the human spirit”, and that “we need greenery of nature to lift our spirits”. He called for Singapore to be developed into a Garden City through intensive landscaping.
The greening of our island started with a tree planting campaign. There was active tree planting on all roads, vacant plots and new development sites, and in 1967, the Garden City programme was launched to green up the whole island to try to make it into a garden.
The vision of the Garden City has galvanised government’s effort to turn the city with little parks in the 1960s and 1970s, into the lush tropical garden city that it is today, thus differentiating Singapore even from other tropical cities. The 1970s saw the development of larger parks with more facilities, such as East Coast Park, and more lush greenery mushrooming across the island.
The growing years - 80s and 90s
In the 1980s, colours were added to our greenery, with more flowering plants on our road and in our gardens. Parks were developed with more innovative ideas, and natural habitats, such as mangroves, were preserved and blended into parks.In the 1990s, as our population became more educated and grew more affluent, parks were planned and designed to meet a broader range of educational needs. In line with the growing awareness of nature, natural habitats were incorporated as part of parks. Accessibility to parks was improved through park connectors which link homes to parks. These park connectors help to join major parks on our island to form an islandwide green network. In the city centre, greening pedestrian malls and pocket parks help to provide green relief from the increasingly built-up urban environment.
Moving with millennium
As we move into the new millennium, our vision evolved from simply making Singapore a Garden City, to making Singapore a City in a Garden. As our population grows, parks and greenery became even more important to the people. People enjoy the open spaces in parks. This is why setting aside land for greenery continues to be one of our priorities though land is scarce in Singapore. Parks are valued as recreational space for the locals, and used to attract tourists and woo investors.
In 2002, URA and National Parks Board (NParks) together drew up the Parks & Waterbodies Plan to guide the development of our parks for the next 10 to 20 years. The Plan looked at how accessibility to parks and nature areas can be further improved on, through extending the concept of park connectors for example. It also looked at the even distribution of parks islandwide, and capitalisation on our natural assets like hills, nature areas and waterbodies.
It is recognised that there should be a greater diversity in parks. The plan is to create an additional 1,200 ha of new parks on top of the 2,600 ha of existing parks. Several measures have been identified. First, new parks will be created in areas where there are not enough parks; and second, existing parks which are heavily used will be enlarged. Third, areas of natural beauty will be made more accessible, and last but not least, our park connectors will be expanded from the 40 km then, to 170 km by 2015. This will form an islandwide network of green. To supplement this, a variety of streetscape treatment was implemented, so that the greenery on our roads will have its own identity. Roads with lush, picturesque greenery are protected as Heritage Roads, such as the scenic Mandai Road and Mount Pleasant Road.
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Park connectors - linking homes to
parks and joining major parks to
form a green network |
