The Future of Central Business Districts (CBD) – A CLC- Arup Roundtable series

1 February 2024

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The Centre for Liveable Cities partnered with Arup to organise the first of a three-part Roundtable series on the Future of Central Business Districts (CBDs) on 19 January 2024, with the Urban Land Institute as a supporting partner. The session, conducted in a hybrid format, brought together over 30 city representatives from Singapore and Asia Pacific, including Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City, Hong Kong, Sydney, and Tokyo, to discuss how we can better plan for CBDs of the future. Participants from both the public and private sectors shared their city’s experiences and engaged in insightful discussions on the key trends, gaps, and opportunities in transforming CBDs.

One key highlight of the discussion was rejuvenation plans for CBDs as we emerge from the pandemic era. Despite differing contexts, most cities aspire towards having more vibrant CBDs that are well supported by adequate infrastructure for better live-work accessibility. Another focal area of the session was unpacking the term “Central Business District” into its components, and considerng strategies to keep CBDs relevant and thriving in 2040 – would CBDs continue to be centrally located or more dispersed? How would the “business” or core function of CBDs change? Would boundaries that define these districts continue to matter over time? Through participant sharing, we learnt that most cities would lean towards having more distributed CBDs that also contain a more diverse mix of uses and stakeholders.

CLC and Arup will build on the findings from this session, and conduct further deep dives with different city experts, before organising another Roundtable session in the coming months to discuss the “How to’s” of achieving key strategic outcomes for future CBDs.

The study findings will be shared at the upcoming World Cities Summit (2-4 June 2024 in Singapore), where the third Downtown Roundtable session will be convened to extend the conversation on CBD revitalisation to other global cities.