Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Kuala Lumpur
Population of Metropolitan Area: 7,200,000(though I think this is very generous, city proper is 2 million)
Year Founded: 1857

Kuala Lumpur seems to me like a city of juxtapositions. Most visibly out of a largely impoverished city rises the Petronas Towers, a symbol of wealth seen not only from every point in the city, but recognized world wide. I then wonder is it better to create a few really nice things to stimulate development through out the city or is it better to spread the investments around. There is no denying it though that Petronas Towers, as well as the rapid transit with flat screen monitors to and from the new world class airport are first rate. There’s also no denying that the towers put the city on the map, I will even admit that before I visited Kuala Lumpur, I only recognized the Petonas Towers, I did not know the cities name.

The majority of the city its self feels very chaotic, poorly planned with out basic things like sidewalks and street signs. I walked from KL Sentral where the train from the airport arrives to the area around the Patronas Towers and it very quickly became clear to me that KL is not a walking city. Once I figured out how to get down from the train station (the station is platformed up in the air and accessed by elevated highway ramps) I had quite a time trying to walk on any of the streets. Sidewalks would end, roads would become pseudo highways, and the only way to ever get across was to just run for it. I suppose the residents realize this as I hardly ever saw anyone else walking, everyone seems to drive. The streets are also really hard to navigate as the seldom link up with other streets and tend to go one long winded swoops in the wrong direction.

Haha but enough of this negativity. Once you get from KL Sentral to the newly developed area around the Petronas Towers you begin to see a completely new city, one that is lavish and equipped with all of the modern amenities. Inside the Petronas Towers is a gigantic shopping mall packed with people and designer stores. The mall is linked to the subway as well as a neighboring park and convention center. I think its safe to say that the project was a success. The buildings themselves are clearly inspired by the traditional temples like those found at Angkor Wat and other places surrounding the region. I was surprised in a sense at how Art Deco the design of the building felt, especially the interiors. The main lobby plays contrast between extremely dark stone against a lighter grey, similar in color scheme to the lobby of the Chrysler Building if I recall correctly. The general form of the buildings also reminds me greatly of the Chrysler building, but this new interpretation feels lighter and more molded. I will say though the Chrysler building is one of my favorite buildings, and I think the Petronas Towers come close to achieving the same sense of branding and serve as a similar symbol of the city as a whole.

Singapore, Singapore

Singapore, Singapore
Population of Metropolitan Area: 4,436,000 World Rank: 62
Population Density: 6,814/km^2
Gross Domestic Product: $129,000,000 USD World Rank: 36
Year Founded: 1819

Singapore is a fine city… I think that about sums it up. That slogan made famous by tourist t-shirts pokes fun at how scrubbed clean the city feels; no litter, no jay walking, nothing out of line. Of course generally speaking its good not to have these problems, you have to hand it to a city where you can walk as far as I did at all times of the day and never come across a shady part of town. I think the issue that most people seem to have with Singapore is just the mundane vibes that are given off by a city actually working to plan. It’s sort of like the balance between setting a trend and having the trend become mainstream, Singapore feels very mainstream.

In fact, Singapore sort of feels like one of those cities that could be located anywhere. The city has a diverse population and 4 official languages. Its prominent central business district make the city feel very similar to the cities we know and love in America, but then again Singapore was another English colony and formed at a similar time.

The central city its self is absolutely beautiful. Fort Canning Park is one of the nicest landscaped urban parks I have ever seen and the city boasts a great skyline with plenty of water front. Also the Singapore River snakes through the city dividing many new modern buildings from the classical government buildings and spacious parks. The waterfront is lined with seemingly endless restaurants and bars.

Singapore is a shopping city. You could also say Singapore is a city of shopping malls, I think there’s one like every other block. Of all the stores though, the biggest shopping destination is the Orchard Road. The Orchard Road reminds me of Michigan Avenue in Chicago, but with even more stores and substantially shorter buildings. I also think it must be a sign of affluence for these stores to blast the side walk with air conditioning at least 20 degrees cooler than the temp outside. The temperature change is so extreme between inside and outside that it’s a wonder people don’t end up sick.

One thing that surprised me was how much is still being built in Singapore despite the economy. A number of new malls and high rises are going up as wall as a DNA inspired pedestrian bridge across the bay and a spiraling green roof park space. I guess something in the city must be working alright, even the ridiculous amount of stores seem to be full.

One of the things that I find most interesting about Singapore is the dominance of the tower in the park housing project-esque city planning that fill the city suburbs. On the way in from the airport there is just a sea of 20 story or so housing complexes with no urban front to be found. In the area I stayed in, just north of little India, these housing towers began to mesh with the older colonial city, comprised of traditional looking 2 and 3 story row homes. To me it’s this tower in the park idea that sort of lend to that idea of Singapore being a “fine” city. I’m sure they are nice places to live, and they are efficient, but they take the city life and confine it in private pockets distributed through out the city. The most urban areas of the city are with out a doubt little India and Chinatown, which I think has a lot to with the fact that they inhabit the older English colonial sections of the city. I think it’s clear that the suburban model work’s, I just think it’s clearly a lame solution.
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One thing though I did find interesting about Singapore’s solution to modern highway systems is that they had maybe 6 or 8 lane roads, but in order to speed up traffic the sidewalk was often separated from the street. This sort of diminished the idea of the street front but it was able to keep with the idea of the building front. The only real problem I found with this solution was that in a few instances in order to cross the street you had to go across underground connectors.

So in the end despite its sort of corporate mainstream feel I actually liked Singapore a lot. I was a little surprised when I was actually told to stop sitting on a buildings bench height retaining wall, but what are you going to do. While Singapore feels like a number of different cities, it definitely functions very well and I think it would be a very easy place to live, work, and enjoy.

Not Goodbye, Just Till Later

Some photo's of our final days, I might add to these later

Puerto Princesa, The Philippines

Puerto Princesa, The Philippines
Population of Metropolitan Area: 210,508
Year Founded: 1961

Puerto Princesa is unique of the cities I have visited thus far on my trip for its smaller size and is sort of strange in the sense of its city limits. From the center of town, where our hotel is, it takes us close to an hour to drive to our site, which is still in the city limits. While the city center is very densely populated, the surrounding parts of the city are very agrarian and many of the cities residents live out in the country side. To me it would be very hard to imagine what living out in these rural areas, completely on your own would be like. In a number of ways it reminds me of the stories my grandmother tells of growing up in rural Kentucky. What’s amazing about this though is that for the most part this type of lifestyle has been eliminated in America, and it’s all happened in a single life time. It’s hard to get a sense of how quickly the world is changing sometimes, but its very evident here in the Philippines. Along the drive to the site we pass a number of homes made of bamboo with thatched roofs, which to me is very interesting and picturesque to see. But there is also a number of similar homes that have replaced there roofs with corrugated metal, and it’s on this merging of past and present that I find most interesting. To me it’s sad to see a unique indigenous architecture replaced by a faceless interpretation of modern building materials. I know the country wants to progress, and that machine made products would free residents from household tasks to do so called better work in offices and there by progressing the area, or rather the areas economy. But it’s hard to not feel like something would be lost if that happened. In my mind, Sydney Australia might as well have been located in America, it was so similar, but the Philippines are truly unique of anywhere I have been and it seems unfortunate that there is a desire to be like everyone else as opposed to highlighting the areas differences. The tricycles used here in Puerto Princesa are unique to any other part of the world. Not only that, but it is such a charm to see city streets full of 75% tricycles, and since they’re easy to maintain I gather they have a very long life and have a relatively low cost of ownership. Imagine though what would happen if these were replaced with yellow taxis like the rest of the world. I guess that that is my greatest fear for an area like this is that in attempting to improver through standardization and stricter building codes and so on, the city could be come faceless and with out an identity. Hopefully the wall marts of the world will stay away, but I really don’t see how they can hold out.

Manila, The Philippines

Manila, The Philippines
Population of Metropolitan Area: 20,075,000 World Rank: 5
Population Density: 14,090/km^2
Gross Domestic Product: $108,000,000 USD World Rank: 43
Year Founded: 1574

Manila like the rest of the Philippines has a very layered and storied past. The city was founded as a Jesuit Spanish Mission, and was originally the walled city of intramuros. Giant stone walls and a moat surrounded the city from hostile natives, the likes of which most famously beheaded Ferdinand Magellan. Intramuros is the oldest part of the city, and though it was the second most extensively bombed area during WWII, the area has been largely rebuilt and now is a major tourist destination. This layer of Spanish settlement gives way a city planed as an American territory by renowned city planner Daniel Burnham. While sections of the city were completed the city today is a jumble of changing influences and plans layered over top of pervious and incomplete plans.

It’s hard to describe the chaos of the city that is Manila. My first experience of Filipino culture is that they seem to have no concept of a line. At the airport people would rush, and cut in line, just to get to another line. A similar experience takes place on the streets of Manila every day. Residents self proclaim that the traffic in Manila is so bad that it is the second worst in the world behind only Bangkok. The real problem lies in the lack of public utilities like sidewalks and traffic lights. These problems are being addressed as new highways are being built and an elevated train services a good part of the city, but clearly the city has expanded much faster than its infrastructure. Space in the city has become a real problem. Houses are built touching each other and on interior lots with no real access to the street. On the fringe of town its actually and impressive sight to see shanties line a stream built by salvaged materials and rising three and four stories tall. As is logical in an area so densely populated, pollution has become a real problem. Since the city is hot and humid the effects of smog and exhaust fumes are exacerbated. The problem has become so extreme that there are days of the week where certain numbered license plates cannot drive.

Despite some of these disadvantages, the city operates in a way that is fascinatingly pure and organic. Most everything that is built is done so for a purpose, and as such the architecture is not only logical but responsive to the cities unique environment. Crowded twisting alleys are lined with stores, shops, and restaurants, and despite the location or building design, the businesses are always packed. To me it’s very interesting to compare the strategies employed in American cities to get stores and restaurants to open downtown with the natural occurrence and necessity of such businesses in crowded Asian cities like Manila.

On a fundamental basis Manila functions very well in a number of ways. The city is certainly vibrant and is very walkable for its immense scale. However the cities transportation problems combined with its extreme overcrowding make the city feel chaotic and overwhelming. For the first time I think I can understand the draw of suburban life in comparison to the chaos of this type of city life. I wonder if American cities were in a similar situation at the turn of the century before the flight to the suburbs took place. I also wonder if that indeed was the case, how a city like Manila will respond to the changes growth and development bring, especially in regards to the number of mistakes I believe American cities made during this period of their development.