Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 162 While many Sydney planners hark back to the comfortable urban form of old European cities like Paris and Barcelona there is much to learn from the incredible energy coming out of Asian cities that are in the same time zone as Sydney. This century has been dubbed the Asian Century by the Australian Government and it is easy to understand why. There are increasing economic ties with cities like Shanghai and Singapore and tourism from these cities to Sydney is growing rapidly. To understand better the relationships between these cities and the aspirations of each of them to be globally relevant, the Urban Taskforce commissioned Professor Richard Hu of Canberra University and an expert in Global Cities to prepare a research paper on the three cities beginning with the letter 'S' – Sydney, Singapore, Shanghai. Professor Hu’s report looked at various ranking systems of cities across the world. Interestingly the three cities ranked highly in many of the measures. To learn more about the cities I visited them with Professor Hu and met with the key planning bodies and private planners, architects and developers. GLOBAL CITIES The term Global City came from an important book by New York writer Sasskia Sassen titled “The Global City” published in 1991. The term had been used earlier by British planning expert Peter Hall in 1966 but it was Sassen’s book that reinforced the change to economic activities that was leading to global organisations who operated in cities across the world. The growth in computer driven businesses and communication technologies was creating businesses that flowed across the world. CITY RANKINGS Peter Taylor from the United Kingdom took this concept further by researching the major networked knowledge based and financial firms in the world and how they were underpinning the world’s economy through their operations in a network of cities across the world. He went further and developed a World City Connectivity Index that had New York and London at the top and renamed NYLON. High in the index is Singapore with Shanghai moving up the list fast and Sydney also scoring well. THE GARDEN CITY The original Garden City movement driven by Ebenezer Howard in Britain a hundred years ago was about suburbia. The family could live in a half city half country environment on a suburban block with front and back gardens. Singapore and to a lesser extent Shanghai have taken the garden city idea of one hundred years ago and brought it into our urban age. Helped somewhat by a tropical climate, buildings in Singapore are dripping with green landscape while Shanghai’s streets have rows of mature trees supported by bamboo poles and masses of shrubs. It is almost impossible to see the tall buildings above this green layer. LEARNING FROM ASIAN CITIES From the many meetings in Shanghai and Singapore and from reading many books and data sources we have extracted some of the positive lessons that can learnt from Asian cities. These cities are very connected to the global city movement and they are at the forefront of how to balance liveability with density. This issue of Urban Ideas sets out to present some of the areas a city like Sydney, firmly anchored in the Asian region, can learn from our neighbouring cities. Thank you to PIA for sponsoring this special edition of Urban Ideas. Global cities can be dense and liveable – learning from Asian cities The Urban Taskforce is keen to have responses to the proposals illustrated in this issue of URBAN IDEAS and we welcome comments to admin@urbantaskforce.com.au Chris Johnson AM Chief Executive Officer Urban Taskforce Australia Credits Cover image featuring Sydney's One Central Park, and Singapore's Parkroyal Hotel Shanghai towers make the city a spectacle