Tiziano Terzani was no fan of Singapore. The Florentine writer and journalist explored every corner of Asia. He had witnessed the fall of Saigon to the People's Army of Vietnam, and the fall of Phnom Penh to the Khmer Rouge. When he visited Singapore, he concluded all it had to offer was its airport: "The concentration of everything Singapore has to show: its efficiency, its cleanliness, its order." Otherwise, the wealthy city-state was nothing more to him than "the largest supermarket of consumer goods, futility, and prissiness in Asia".
Terzani's assessment has some truth in it, but it is far from complete. Singapore's meticulousness is good for a lot more than making the airport run smoothly; it also allows ideas to be transformed into action with astonishing speed. As a result, Singapore has become a living laboratory for urban innovation.
I have seen this process firsthand. In 2013, with the 50th anniversary of Singapore's independence approaching, the head of the city's civil service sought my feedback when considering what historical milestones or experiences should be central to the celebrations. Perhaps, I suggested, Singapore should focus not on the past, but on the future, such as by propelling innovation in a sector in which it has always excelled: mobility.
Only days passed before I received a call informing me that the government had decided to establish a working group, the Committee on Autonomous Road Transport for Singapore, to study the transition to driverless cars, and I was invited to participate. Since then, the committee has met with stakeholders, to lay the groundwork.
Autonomous vehicles have already become advanced, but the challenge to their development is not only technological. Transforming urban mobility also demands rethinking the spaces where our newly independent cars operate -- and where they are stored.
If car- and ride-sharing services have blurred the traditional distinction between public and private transportation, driverless cars could all but obliterate it. Most people don't need their car to be parked outside their house or office all day long. If that car was self-driving, it could spend its idle time giving rides to family members, neighbours, acquaintances or anyone else in town.
Given this, shared cars could well become the new normal. As the total number of motor vehicles in circulation declines, so, too, would parking needs. Our lab at MIT, Senseable City, estimates that the transition to shared, driverless cars could enable Singapore to eliminate about 80% of its 1.3 million parking spaces.
The newly available land could spur a reimagining of residential areas, with curbsides being lined not with rows of cars and parking metres, but instead with outdoor seating for restaurants, playgrounds and miniature gardens. Space could also be dedicated to charging stations for electric vehicles, loading and unloading areas for e-commerce, and parking for scooters and shared bicycles.
In most cities, such a vision would be laid out in a well-researched dossier -- and then left to gather dust. Not in Singapore. There, the city's disciplined government apparatus and major industrial players moved in lockstep. The amount of progress has been stunning.
It helps to have the support of Singapore's Economic Development Board and sovereign-wealth fund, which have pursued coordinated, large-scale investments in new mobility start-ups such as nuTonomy. Founded at MIT, nuTonomy began testing the first fully autonomous taxi service in Singapore in 2016. The next year, the company was sold for US$450 million (14.9 billion baht), generating significant financial returns for the government.
More innovation is on the way. Our firm helped to create CapitaSpring, a skyscraper that takes into account the impending transition to future mobility systems. For example, the parking garage is slightly higher than normal and its floor is not inclined, so that, as demand for parking falls, it can potentially be repurposed as offices overlooking Marina Bay.
It is no coincidence that Singapore, an island without abundant natural resources, has achieved some of the world's highest levels of per capita GDP in 50 years. Its leaders have consistently demonstrated a capacity for long-term vision and decisive action.
Singapore is far from perfect. The weight of progress has often been carried by a large migrant population, working in dangerous, low-paying jobs with few opportunities for advancement. And while public administration is fast and enterprising at the top, the middle ranks remain slow and risk averse. Finally, the orderliness that so bored Terzani is stifling creativity. The start-up economy is still struggling to take hold in Singapore.
Despite these limits, Singapore is perhaps the most advanced urban laboratory in Asia, especially when it comes to mobility. It deserves to be studied and, in many ways, admired. Project Syndicate
Carlo Ratti, Director of the Senseable City Lab at MIT, is co-founder of the international design and innovation office Carlo Ratti Associati.