Asia’s unprecedented rate of urbanization in the past decades has spurred urban planning innovation and experimentation. A key aspect of Asian planning innovation is the important role played by imaginations of the future in shaping urban design, policy, and priorities. Building the city of the future has become a concern of many governments and planning agencies in Asian states, while societal and market actors have contributed to the imaginations of the future as they seek to influence and take a stake in urban development. As these urban actors discuss, debate, and deliberate about a city’s development, other cities are referenced as positive and negative examples to solve anticipated future problems or as aspirational models and warnings of pathways gone wrong. 

Our research seeks to understand the interaction between imaginations of the future, discourses of urban planning and pathways of urban development. Interdisciplinary in thrust, our research involves geography, sociology, history, and planning studies. How do sites of urban planning in Asia reflect and generate imaginations of the future? What roles do references to other cities and sites play in these imaginations of the future? How do inter-referencing discourses influence the development of cities of the future? How do inter-referencing discourses change over time with the development of the cities?  

PI & Co-PI: Daniel Goh PS & Tim Bunnell
Collaborators: Lee Kah-Wee & Nick Smith
ARI Team: Priza Marendraputra & How Zhan Jie

Funding Agency: Ministry of Education Academic Research Fund Tier 2 (MOE-T2EP40222-0001)
Project Duration: 1 August 2023 – 31 July 2026