Increasingly, we live in cities that have everything except space to live.
Instead of greenery, we see car parks, and our proximity to one another is being lost. In our rush, we have forgotten that a city is not just about infrastructure, but above all, people and their interactions.
In a conversation as part of The Perspectives Series, our CEO Nicholas Bonaventure highlights that the real challenge of contemporary urbanism is not a lack of technology, but the lack of balance between functionality and people. Drawing inspiration from examples in Bahrain and Singapore, he spoke about the need for planning that restores meaning to everyday spaces - spaces which are people-centric.
We began with Bahrain’s Souq Al Baraha - a place that could become a model for a modern yet human city. One where everything you need is within a three-minute walk: coffee, a haircut, a stroll. Where you don’t see motorways everywhere, but pedestrian life instead. A simple vision, and yet increasingly desirable.
In Singapore they’ve understood that public infrastructure is more than just the metro - it’s the entire ecosystem that must function around it. There, urban planning goes hand in hand with harmonious development and architecture. It’s not, of course, about copying their model, but about reflecting on a question: are we building cities for cars, or for people?
Ultimately, the city of the future will not be measured by the height of its skyscrapers, but by how much room it makes for people.
Thank you, Ammar, for the invitation.
Conversations like this remind us that dialogue has immense power to shape understanding, inspire reflection, and bring us closer to the kind of world we want to live in.
