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Centre for Liveable Cities Knowledge Hub
Articles

ULI Asia Pacific REImagine 2024 – Keeping CBDs Relevant

1 January 2025

CLC’s Director of Research, Dr Limin Hee delivered the keynote address at ULI Asia Pacific REImagine 2024 on “Success in the City”, focusing on how cities and Central Business Districts need to reinvent themselves to remain relevant, attractive, and competitive.

A woman speaks into a microphone while another panelist listens at a REimagine event panel discussion.

CLC’s Director of Research Dr Limin Hee participated at the ULI Asia Pacific REImagine 2024 held in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, last year. Focused on the future of real estate and exploring transformative solutions to the challenges in the built environment, the forum was a unique environment for knowledge sharing, upskilling and connecting industry stakeholders and experts from around the region.

Dr Hee delivered a keynote address on “Success in the City”, distilling the key findings from CLC’s recently launched publication The Future of CBDs: Perspectives from 6 APAC Cities. Central Business Districts (CBDs) continue to play a major role in thriving and dynamic cities around the world. Dr Hee’s presentation thus focused on how Asia Pacific CBDs could leverage the post-pandemic recovery wave and evolve to remain relevant, attractive, and competitive. She highlighted five aspirations for Future CBDs: Connected, Distinct, Inclusive, Vibrant and Resilient. These were illustrated with examples of how cities like Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City, Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney and Tokyo were rejuvenating their CBDs and commercial nodes.

In addition, Dr Hee pointed out the importance of measuring the “success” of CBDs and investing in data collection. While doing so, cities should be mindful that there is no single measure of success, and that individual CBDs need to consider their unique contexts and goals. Where possible, these datasets should also be made publicly accessible, such that stakeholders are able to make data-driven decisions.

A colorful illustrated infographic about central business districts and their future success.

The keynote address was followed by a fireside chat, moderated by Mr Chintan Raveshia, Cities Business Leader, Southeast Asia from Arup, a CLC knowledge partner. This discussion revolved around topics such as how to retain people in CBDs to create vibrancy, the value of memory and historically significant buildings in the downtown, managing embodied carbon as well as the need to inject affordable housing into CBDs. The fireside chat saw lively audience participation on how the development of urban rail networks would lead to transformative change in cities.

The learnings from this session and the ULI Asia Pacific REImagine will continue to enrich CLC’s rese arch on how we can build future-ready CBDs and liveable cities for our residents.

Contributed by: Alison Lee, Assistant Director, Research

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