How Gen Z can save the CBD and business parks

We need to transform our city centre and business hubs into youth-oriented innovation nuclei to catalyse new ideas, ensure 24/7 vibrancy, diversity and resilience.

By injecting the Gen Z X-factor into the Central Business District and business hubs, Singapore will not only embed post-Covid-19 resilience in its infrastructure, but also create an explosive fission of new ideas to secure its position as the Asia-Pacific’s leading innovation nucleus well into the future, says the writer. ST PHOTO: KUA CHEE SIONG

Over coffee with an old school classmate, I suggested that given how Covid-19 lockdowns caused the Central Business District (CBD) and business hubs to turn into ghost towns, the Government will need to greater incentivise more residential housing in the city centre. This "living, working and playing" will give food and beverage and retail businesses a better chance to survive if we are forced to lock down again in future.

He agreed, then added: "But if we want to embed 24/7 vibrancy in our business hubs and develop true innovation clusters to build the next biotech unicorn, or develop a vaccine for the next Covid variant, we need to inject an X-factor that is missing in our CBD and business hubs."

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