Part 5: Vision vs. Reality - Forest City

The final leg of our journey took us across the Causeway back into Malaysia, where we explored the controversial mega-project Forest City, followed by a quick visit to Johor Premium Outlet. The shift in urban experience was stark. From Singapore’s fine-grained, people-centered urbanism, we arrived in a place built on speculation, scale, and spectacle.

Forest City (Image credit: Mohd Rasfan/AFP via GettyImages)

Forest City: A Cautionary Tale of Future Planning

Often dubbed a "Ghost City" (Marsh, 2023), I wanted to see it for myself. The sales gallery was grand, with large urban models and impressive landscaping. The buildings were futuristic, and the vision was ambitious—high-end living, international business, and eco-innovation. Some families are playing at the waterpark, but walking through the actual streets reveals another story.

Built on reclaimed land and envisioned as a smart eco-city, Forest City markets itself as a futuristic green utopia. But walking through its empty boulevards and closed storefronts, the disconnect between ambition and reality was undeniable. The city was quiet, the high-rise towers largely unoccupied, and the atmosphere felt staged rather than lived-in.

From an architectural standpoint, the buildings looked sleek but generic. Green walls and solar panels offered an image of sustainability, but one couldn’t help but question the ecological cost of land reclamation and the social exclusion embedded in its pricing and target market.

Where were the schools, the clinics, the parks for locals? Where was the community? Despite its promise of a “city of the future,” Forest City felt isolated, incomplete, and disconnected—a prime example of how top-down, investment-led development can fail without genuine social and environmental grounding.


Johor Premium Outlet: Consumption over Community

Our brief stop at Johor Premium Outlet (JPO) further emphasized this theme. Designed for retail tourism, it offered comfort and branded experience, but lacked the soul of a civic space. The comparison with Singapore’s hawker centres or community hubs was immediate—those were places of exchange and coexistence. JPO was purely transactional.


Final Reflections: What Singapore Taught Me About Sustainable?

This trip has shaped my understanding of what makes a city successful—not its skyline, but its systems of care, inclusion, and adaptability. The most memorable spaces weren’t the grandest; they were the most human-centered.

  • Urban design must start with people, not projections.
  • Environmental sustainability is meaningless without social sustainability.
  • Malaysia’s future development depends on whether we can integrate local wisdom, community needs, and long-term thinking into our built environment.

Malaysia has potential, but our cities are car-centric. Suburban sprawl eats up green spaces. Skyscrapers dominate our skylines, but often at the cost of community. We need to rethink our priorities: Stop building far-flung townships. Stop relying on highways. Stop creating dead shopping malls. Start investing in public transport, green streets, green parks and inclusive housing.

I dream of a future where Malaysians walk safely on shaded sidewalks, where public parks are everywhere, where even the wealthy take the train, and where our rivers are clean and lively again.

This trip showed me what's possible. Now it's time to bring that vision home.


 References

  1. Marsh, N. (2023). Forest City: Inside Malaysia’s Chinese-built “ghost city.” https://www.bbc.com/news/business-67610677

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