Second Roundtable on the Future of Central Business Districts

Source: James Pere/Unsplash

CLC and Arup are collaborating on a research study on the Future of Central Business Districts (CBDs), with ULI Asia Pacific as a Supporting Partner. While office markets in the West have been impacted by post-Covid hybrid or remote-work models, CBDs in Asia Pacific have seen more robust return to office trends. Hence, this study focuses on the role of future CBDs in the context of emerging challenges through multi-city (Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City, Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney, and Tokyo) and multi-sectoral perspectives that provide lessons from looking across the case studies.

At the first roundtable, we identified emerging challenges and some common aspirations across the 6 six cities. 45 representatives from these cities convened again virtually, on 26 March 2024, to discuss the necessary actions to transform CBDs for the future. These included efforts to grow the night-time economy, place management strategies, and the development of poly-centres. Participants also shared on policy gaps and implementation roadblocks that had to be addressed, and key learnings from their experiences. We also brainstormed on possible indicators that can be used to measure and evaluate the “success” of these efforts.

The findings from the study will be shared at the upcoming World Cities Summit, 2 - 4 June 2024, in Singapore, where the third and final roundtable will be convened with the participation of cities from the US and Europe, in addition to Asia, to bring the conversation to a global audience.