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Building a Garden City - Singaporean Experience

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The boulevards of majestic Rain Tree (Samanea saman) along the green corridor connecting the Changi International Airport to the city centre is an impressive sight to visitors to Singapore (refer photo). The seamless garden effect with a green network penetrates all roads in the city centre. All the elevated walkways are lined by colourful Bougainvillea (refer photo) and the main roads, even those in the city centre, are given wide planting spaces for planting large trees. The building of a successful garden city like Singapore is not an accident. It was the result of enduring effort of the government and the people in the past forty years. The National Parks Board is credited with Singapore's 'Garden city' success. The Board is responsible for providing and also managing quality parks, greenery and related services to meet the needs of both residents and visitors. It involved the top echelons of government from the onset. It also depended in particular upon the combined efforts and expertise of professionals including landscape architects, horticulturalists, botanists, engineers etc. Strong leadership and steadfast commitment of the government with adequate funding and manpower were prerequisites to the success. The spearhead of the government's leadership was Garden City Action Committee which was closely monitored by the Prime Minister. It was responsible for formulating policy as well as directing the course of the Garden City campaign and coordinating with private sectors. In order to provide a green verge to all roadways, a stringent road code has been implemented vigorously. Utilities and roads had to allow sufficient spaces for greenery. Another challenge was the technology and expertise in finding suitable species of tropical trees for the city environment since cities posed severe conditions to the growth of trees in general. Enormous resources on the upgrading of horticultural practice have been given by the Singaporean government.

Majestic trees (Albizia Saman) form a green corridor connecting Singapore Changi International Airport and the city centre. The seamless garden effect with a green network penetrates all roads in the city centre. Photo above showing the wide planting zone with mature trees and the meticulously maintained Bougainvillea-lined elevated walkway.

The story behind the success of Singapore in establishing a world renowned 'Garden City' in the past forty years was clearly demonstrated. It is a result of remarkable foresight, thorough planning, dedicated commitment from top to bottom, tremendous hard work, collaborative effort of all levels, high priority given to greening in face of other competition for land, and adequate resources and expertise.

In contrast to Singapore, Hong Kong's greening approach is fragmented. There is a lack of centralized policy and the tree planting work is scattered among various bureaux and over ten departments. Moreover, there is a lack of appropriate priority given to landscape works in face of competition of land from utilities. For the sake of ease of utility maintenance, utility reserve areas require a nearly sterile piece of land in the vicinity; while in Singapore, utilities co-exist with tree planting.

Maintenance concern is another key area. It has to be emphasized that quality maintenance is vital to quality landscape works since plants, as growing and living materials, require constant and appropriate attention to up keep the optimum form. In Hong Kong, there is a constant conflict between the diverging parties of design and implementation, and maintenance. There are a lot of instances where the maintenance parties refuse to take up the work, leading to the withdrawal of the entire planting scheme or a planted area without maintenance. Singapore, by designating the design, implementation and maintenance of landscape works under one authority, streamline all the processes and ensure a quality landscape is properly established and maintained.

The Singapore's successful experience is especially relevant and valuable to Hong Kong since the constraints, opportunities, population density of both places are similar. If Hong Kong is to establish herself as the 'Green Model of Asia' as stated in the Chief Executive's Policy Address, the above fundamental issues have to be overcome before any significant progress can be made. Otherwise the greening effort is only a thin veneer without the essential prerequisites of establishing substantial and long term greening impact that is commensurate with a green model city.

by Kathy Ng
Hong Kong Institute of Landscape Architects

March 2002