FOR urban planners struggling to reconcile ever rising urban density with staying green, Singapore offers a way forward. The city-state’s government has spent the past six decades working towards solutions that allow a burgeoning population to share a small island while at the same time being in harmony with nature. And its latest efforts bring Singapore closer to this aim than perhaps any other major city.

When Singapore became an independent city-state in 1965, its founding prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, was already set on avoiding the mistakes of other rapidly growing Asian cities. Rather than a concrete jungle, his ambition was for something more akin to Britain’s garden cities. But the initial environment wasn’t particularly promising. Singapore’s rivers were polluted, its forests had long since largely been cut down and there was a shortage of housing, pushing people into ever more marginal spaces.

What followed were clear and increasingly integrated plans for housing, transport and infrastructure with plenty of scope for green public spaces. And so, despite increasing urbanisation, Singapore managed to boost its green cover from 36 per cent in 1986 to 47 per cent by 2007, while also cleaning up the polluted Singapore River.