Promoting Liveability in East and South-East Asian Cities - The Role of Green Infrastructure Design in Urban Planning

Cities in east and south-east Asia are subject to extensive development pressures. Continued urbanisation, infrastructure redundancy, and variable economic conditions make investment in urban nature difficult. However, increased instances of extreme weather and the challenges of designing places that (a) people want to live in and (b) have a high-quality of life in is challenging. To address these issues there is a growing discussion of how urban greening in the form of street trees, parks, water bodies, green walls and roofs, and small-scale interventions in urban nature can be used to future proof cities to change. The paper will build on this premise to examine how traditional landscape motifs and approaches to urban nature are being used in contemporary urban planning across east and south-east Asia. Moreover, it will consider how innovations in urban greening are working alongside traditional forms of investment to support the design, delivery and management of high quality and liveable spaces. The central argument made in the paper is that current thinking on urban nature is reflective of traditional landscape form and function but is being applied within a contemporary framing. This allows landscape professionals to work with politicians, engineers, urban planners and communities to consider how nature can be brought back into urban areas and what technologies can be used to effectively manage infrastructure and climatic change. The paper concludes that investment in green infrastructure is varied and directed towards specific urban agendas across east and south-east Asia. Therefore, to support increased liveability planners need to consider the synergies afforded to urban greening and regeneration, health and well-being, economic development and climate change adaptation. By highlighting examples of this, the paper provides a set of best practice that can be applied in other locations to support enhanced quality of life.