@ green | July-August , 2021

City design and city management are essential in people ’ s lives

BY FATIHAH MANAF

With the rapid rate of urbanisation , there ’ s an immediate need for a proper and inclusive urban planning solution .

In celebrating Malaysia ’ s 100th year of formal town planning , the Malaysian Institute of Planners ( MIP ) and Nextdor Property Communications have come together to organise City Expo Malaysia 2021 ( CEM 2021 ) virtually .

CEM 2021 is a 30-day expo for city makers to showcase their solutions for cities from Nov 8-Dec 8 , 2021 . The expo will also feature a 5-day forum for the public to watch and learn everything about cities .

Before tapping further into the event ’ s details , the President of MIP , Datin TPr Noraida Saludin , shared with @ green some major urbanism themes that Malaysian cities are focusing on .

“ The major one would be the concept of placemaking , the idea of turning spaces into places . They are two different things here .

“ If it is just a space , it could be just a space . If it ’ s a place , then it ’ s activated with people . To activate that , you ’ ve got to put in activities , and the activities will have to be something that people are inclined towards .”

She said placemaking was the in-thing for the past two years as many cities in Malaysia have implemented it . Along the way , she revealed Malaysia was also looking at creating healthy cities and smart cities .

Touching on placemaking , Imran Clyde , the Executive Director of Nextdor Property Communications , revealed developers were famous for making a top-down approach .

“ Whatever the management wants , people who do designs have no choice and have to do it ,” said Imran .

“ So , we ’ ve seen situations where they build a skate park , but an expert in skate parks does not design it . So , what you ’ ll have is that you end up with this space that nobody uses because it was not designed by an expert .

Since city design and city management are essential in people ’ s lives ( though they may not see it ), Imran said there ’ s a need for deeper engagement with people to get their feedback . It will provide the stakeholders with a clear picture of what ’ s happening and tapping into people ’ s understanding of city issues .

“ Engagement is a handy tool in town planning ,” he said .

Inspiration behind CEM 2021

Imran said CEM 2021 was conceptualised in 2020 . It was something that MIP wanted to put together , considering there weren ’ t many platforms available which deepdive into city issues and connect different stakeholders .

He said some conferences discussed specific parts of cities , but none of them went across different industries .