A Humble Suggestion to CM

Ideas on Penang Development - Creative City‏
From:Cheng Keat Tan (tanckeat@hotmail.com)
Sent:
Wednesday, 17 Jun, 2009 1: 34 AM
To:
Lim Guan Eng (limguaneng@penang.gov.my)
Dear Chief Minister,

I'm writing this email in response to your call recently for ideas in developing Penang. Here are some of my thoughts:

Signature Community
A plot of land could be identified for a substantial housing scheme and invite renowned architects from all over the world as well as Malaysia to each design a single house on the land. It has been proven that architecture has tremendous potential in attracting tourist dollars. The obvious example is the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao designed by American architect Frank Gehry. Bilbao was a dying old industrial town until this building comes along, and it is now a must visit location for those who visits Spain. However, there must be something special in order to attract these architects to come to Penang. One way of course is if the buildings are really huge which I think Penang doesn't really need that now, another way is if the scheme could contribute to greater cause such as environmental protection. Architects could be asked to build affordable and yet environmentally friendly future houses for the lower income group in this country.

Transport Around George Town
George Town is unique in the sense that we have the most collection of heritage buildings within an intact urban fabric. However, it is exactly because of its scale that people find it hard to visit all the places that they wish. With our hot and humid climate together with the absence of proper pedestrian walkways, visitors will soon find it inconvenient and uncomfortable. A tram system has been proposed by an Australian a few years back to the then Gerakan government but somehow they thought that it was not viable. I can't understand why, maybe because they had no confident in securing funding from Federal. But if we want people to move back and stay in George Town which has no parking facility, then the tram has to be seriously considered. Once the tram is in, then cars could be banned from entering most parts of George Town and the entire area could be pedestrianised. A lot of small European towns operate in this way.

Connectivity
Penang is an island surrounded by sea but we have yet to fully utilise this natural gift that we have. Water transport has to be seriously looked into to solve the traffic congestion problem. A few nodes could be identified in several key locations and integrated jetties be built. This jetty will have to be like the MRT stations in Singapore where they also function as community and commercial nodes. If they are just built as a jetties, then it will not be popular with commuters. It is very obvious that federal funding again is an issue here if not the previous governemnt would have done it already. But they should rope in the private sector. And now with your open tender initiatives, I'm sure a lot of developers would like to participate. Penang has got a number of capable private sectors. But these people will want to see the benefit that they can get in return before they pour in their investment. I suggest the government allow them to reclaim land off the sea and build their integrated jetty/commercial hub there. In that way if the water taxi business does not earn money due to operating cost, they still have their commercial property functioning. Commuters could moved from place to place without the hassle of traffic jam while enjoying the beautiful coastline of the island.

Creative City
Penang has always produced good artists and designers. It could be due to the picturesque environment that we live in. The sad things is most creative people have ventured out of Penang to seek a livelihood. Major reason is that there are lack of career opportunity in the creative industry. The industry is not highly regarded by the authority as well as the public. There are now 3 major art schools in Penang, namely USM, KDU and Equator. The One Academy will soon open its campus opposite KDU. It is a very competitive business in the education industry. All these colleges wanted to showcase their students work to the public so that they can attract a bigger enrolment in the coming semester. And this is where they can contribute. There are a lot of left-over spaces along the edges of higway as well as roundabout. Public sculptures could be built in these places and it will indeed be great if they were designed by students from these colleges. You will be surprised to find very creative art work from these young people. We all want Penang to be a global city but there has to be a theme. And I believe Penang could be turned into a creative global city.

Richard Florida in his book 'The Rise of the Creative Class' has showed us that sustainable cities are those that could attract lots of creative people to work there. In order to attract these people, variety of amenities also have to be provided such as entertainment, recreation and transport. These people are highly emphasize on lifestyle as oppose to living. Singapore has long recognized this trend and that is why the city state has intensively boosted its entertaintment amenities, the largest of all being the 2 casinos that are under construction. They were called integrated resorts because it is not just gaming places, there are theme parks, retails, galleries and exhibition places.

This is what I can think of in this point in time but I still have a lot on my mind, just that I haven't digested it yet. If you don't mind, I shall email to you again on new ideas.

Best regards,
CK

Desire to Win

They are fired up and they want more. Those who won competition must have this feeling every time they successfully beat the rest to climb to the top. Now that they have tasted the sweetness of victory, they must not stop but keep competing even after they leave college. Winning competition is the guaranteed way to gain recognition in the design industry.

George Lam Genting Concert 25th April 2009