Sidewalks are the secret sauce to simulating Singapore’s success in Southeast Asia cites

Cities across Southeast Asia use Singapore as a measuring stick for development progress. “The next Singapore” is a phrase that is often used in this context. These cities try to emulate Singapore by building luxury apartments and landmark towers to attract high-net-wealth individuals and family offices. Instead of looking up at skyscrapers, cities should look down at the street level first. Singapore’s success starts at ground level with its sidewalks.

In my travels around Southeast Asia, I walk everywhere to get a sense of city development. Most cities in Southeast Asia are terrible walking cities. The sidewalks are an obstacle course of potholes, bike and car parking, auxiliary motorbike lanes, and path-blocking utility poles.

I’ve been to Singapore many times over the years, but it was on my most recent trip where I truly appreciated sidewalk infrastructure. I had just come from Johor Bahru, which is one of the worst cities I’ve walked around in Southeast Asia.

I crossed the border on the shuttle train, and after exiting the station I was greeted with a proper walking path. It felt so relaxing to not have to worry about looking out for traffic.

On this Singapore trip, I walked everywhere because it was so easy to do. Yes, it’s hot, but it’s hot in every capital in Southeast Asia.

There are even sidewalks in the outer reaches of the city. I was walking from the metro station to the northern entrance of the Singapore Rail Corridor, and it occurred to me that a road like this wouldn’t have a footpath in most other places.

The walkability of Singapore is in stark contrast to where I had just come from. Johor Bahru is pouring billions of dollars into building new urban areas, yet it still hasn’t got the ground-level fundamentals right.

Old JB is the most walkable part of Johor Bahru, as it has a street layout and old shophouses similar to those in Singapore. Beyond the old area, JB descends into a pedestrian hellscape that is a product of Malaysia’s car-centric development. What doesn’t make sense is that the JB Old Town is always busy with people, and it’s obvious that this type of urban planning is popular, yet they keep building new areas that are hard to walk.

I went to Forest City (opposite Singapore) hoping that this supposed green city would have been better planned for pedestrians than Johor Bahru. Even in this newly-planned city, they have not thought of building sidewalks next to every road.

Fixing the footpaths of Southeast Asia

Rehabilitating the sidewalks of an entire city is an overwhelming task. It’s better to be looked at as reclaiming the streets one block at a time. It might take a generation to complete, but it’s better than not doing anything.

I’m always pleasantly surprised when I return to Jakarta to find that they doing this street-by-street reclamation, such as these car-blocking bollards.

There also needs to be strict regulation on cars not being allowed to park on sidewalks. One of the reasons there are so many broken paving stones is because cars drive on them. Here is the chance for cities to go wild with issuing parking tickets.

The car parking problem is only going to get worse now that more people can afford a car. Japan has a sensible solution to this. A prospective car owner in Japan has to prove they have off-street parking before they can buy a car.

It’s also worth noting that Singapore wasn’t always like this, so incremental improvements over the years are an achievable aim.

Sidewalks of Southeast Asia

This is the first in a series about sidewalks* in Southeast Asia. I will be covering more about how to make cities in Southeast Asia more walkable.

* I use the phrase sidewalk as it’s more alliteratively pleasing than footpaths or pavements of Southeast Asia. Sidewalk is used in American and Canadian English, pavement is British English, and it is a footpath in Australia, India, New Zealand and Ireland.