Planning an adventure

PlanningResource, 30 July 2008

Yurt slum, Mongolia: planning headache

"As the trans-Mongolian train slid out of the Gobi desert and stepped grass-lands into the sprawling suburbs of Ulan Bator, I peered out of my bunk and was greeted by an amusing sight: not suburbs of Bovis home cul-de-sacs as we know them, but district of yurts, the traditional Mongolian felt-tents, laid out in an urban grid with picket fences and on-street parking!

The last 30 hours on the train had given me chance to reflect on the past 2 months of my sabbatical overland trip up from Bangkok passing through exploding cities such as Beijing, Phnom Phen and Hanoi, and I had reached a conclusion.

Town planning in the UK, for all its bureaucracy, for all its stereotypes and noisy critics is actually a very good thing. From the anything goes tall buildings policy in Bangkok, to the entire Mekong Delta in Vietnam which feels like one long mega city sprawling out of Ho Chi Minh City, the crumbling infrastructure in Cambodia, to the bulldozing without consultation in Beijing: none of this would happen in our (current) system.

What a lovely pair of rose-tinted specs I hear you say! You're right of course, but there are things that we could learn from the fast-growing metropolises of the east. Whilst the Bangkok skytrain has a dramatic visual impact on the city, they certainly know how to deliver major infrastructure projects very quickly.

Ride into town from the 21st century Suvarnabhumi airport and you'll see the miles of new Docklands Light Railway style lines on stilts being completed, with planned urban extensions feeding off each station.

Or how about the street life in Vietnam and Cambodia where seemingly every building is mixed-use and life bustles on the pavements, creating vibrant street scenes buzzing with activity.

The trip has been a refreshing tonic, a professional 'shot in the arm' after 5 years planning and planning training in London, and I would recommend the career break to anyone.

Whilst I'm still forming impressions about how the mega cities of the future will work best, one thing is sure: our counterparts in Asia definitely have their work cut out! Sorting out yurt-slums, crumbling communist apartment blocks, smog and 40% unemployment in Ulan Bator anyone?"

Dan Taylor

Next stop Beijing.