Forest City

by Michael Weinold, 08.08.2019
A model of the project in its final state of expansion urges potential investors not to wait:
“Sold Out” plaques are affixed to most towers. (photo credit: Michael Weinold/ETH Zurich)

Imagine an artificial island off the coast of Singapore, complete with high-rise buildings and hotels. That is “Forest City,” the ultimate Potemkin village – a construction of deception, but it is not clear which Czar it is trying to impress, or to what end.

The clouds hung low as I left the National University of Singapore’s campus residence along with 48 other students from seven universities. As participants of the ETH-Singapore month on urban society, we were scheduled to visit a Chinese macro-engineering real estate project called "Forest City" off the Malaysian jungle, some 45 minutes from Singapore.

As soon as we arrived, our driver parked the van and disappeared into the rain where he treated himself to an extensive smoke-break. Vices like smoking and alcohol consumption are “frowned” upon in Singaporean society. Taxes on both products are so high that even a jug of the blandest variety of local beer, sold in the hawker market, can make Swiss prices seem reasonable.
Some 15 minutes from the border, the main road to the Forest City is as empty as the hotel (photo credit: Michael Weinold/ETH Zurich)
Staff hand out umbrellas. Potential investors are best kept out of the rain. (photo credit: Michael Weinold/ETH Zurich)
After the second van arrived a sales representative of Forest City greeted us and welcomed us in the reception hall of a posh hotel, situated at the northern tip of the newly reclaimed island. Already the hotel seemed oddly out-of-place in terms of its location on a reclaimed island, surrounded by palm-oil plantations to the north, and a busy shipping lane to the south. Even though it appeared to be well-staffed, there were no guests in sight. On our way to the exhibition center, we passed by duty-free shops that clearly seemed to cater to those who cannot afford to indulge their vices at Singaporean prices.
An enormous model of Forest City served as a center piece for the exhibition. To provide some context, the walls of the exhibition were adorned with maps and colorful diagrams that showed the “strategic location” and “future potential” of the project. The idea proposed is to develop the reclaimed island of roughly 10km2 to include a marina, hotels, and high-rise condominiums. Autonomous vehicles would connect the island via a subterranean road network. Neither our guide, despite his enthusiasm, nor the exhibition itself convinced me of its value. Even the map was inaccurate and out of scale - Egypt was located where Libya should be and Italy was portrayed so far north that the country could have hosted the Octoberfest. Buzzwords like sustainability and resilience were sprinkled across the exhibition in fancy typeface. Still, there was nothing in the plan that seemed to qualify as resilient or sustainable. The concrete alone, required to realize the two proposed service levels below the city, would emit more than 100 times the concrete used in Switzerland for all of 2018.
Fancy maps and diagrams leave no room for doubt: Forest City is the new Axis Mundi (photo credit: Michael Weinold/ETH Zurich)
The tour concluded with a visit to the in-house movie theater where we were shown a collection of short films promoting the project. The soundtrack seemed to be more appropriate for a Hollywood epic than a real estate advertisement.

After a two-hour tour of the showroom and the existing buildings in the island, I still had not figured out the business model of the project. Neither was I sure if it could live up to its claims. The unique selling point is clearly the low real estate prices and easy access to Singapore as a cultural center and global travel hub. It seemed doubtful, at best, that the Singaporeans would have any interest in supporting what seems to be a high-rise trailer park in its back yard that is specifically designed to take advantage of Singaporean infrastructure, while denying it tax revenue and political control.
The technical aspects of land reclamation are explained by the guide. (photo credit: Michael Weinold/ETH Zurich)
While the ETH Singapore month offered exclusive insights into the climate change mitigation efforts of Singapore and the technology behind it, I found the tour of Forest City to be the most memorable experience.
"Malaysia zeigt Festlandchinesen die rote Karte"
NZZ Article about Forest City (only in German)
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About the author

Michael is currently pursuing his master’s degree in Physics at ETH Zurich. As part of ETH Singapore Month 2019, he was able to obtain a unique insight into Singapore’s efforts toward climate change mitigation. Intrigued by the development of this young nation, he recommends “The Singapore Story” by the nation’s founder Lee Kuan Yew as a deep-dive into Singapore’s history.