Philippine Megalopoli: Metro Manila, Metro Cebu and Metro Davao

Last October, I attended the international conference of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) for 2016 with the theme “Cities to Megacities: Shaping Dense Vertical Urbanism”. My concept paper on Philippine Megalopoli: Metro Manila, Metro Cebu and Metro Davao was chosen to be presented in Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Hong Kong to over 1,300 attendees from 46 countries and 142 cities.

The cities and emerging metropolitan areas should be planned and developed into mixed-use, compact, and vertical cities and do away with the obsolete lowdensity urban sprawl.

While many of the fellow attendees I have met were curious about the controversial pronouncements of President Duterte, they were also excited to learn about the development opportunities in the Philippines and how our cities are dealing with issues that come with rapid urbanization.

In 2013, Metro Manila was recognized as one of the 20 largest megacities in the world. It is reported to have a night time population of 11.8 million and an estimated day time population of 16 million. According to a Harvard study, Mutations, Metro Manila has the highest population growth rate of 60 persons per hour in year 2000.

Housing in the National Capital Region is expected to increase in prices, not limited to the central business district of Makati. One of the effects of being priced out of the city for employees is the increase of traffic congestion. The average commuting time for Metro Manila citizens is three hours going to work, and three hours going home, with a distance of 10 to 20 kilometers. While there are two million private vehicles that occupy most of the road, they are only two percent of the entire population.

Recommendations to address unbalanced Urban Growth in Metro Manila

The stifling traffic congestion of Metro Manila can be attributed to these major factors: land use pattern, expensive housing in Central Business Districts caused by surrounding low-density and gated subdivisions, the bias towards automobiles and the lack of urban growth centers outside Metro Manila.

Metro Manila is an example of what happens to the mobility of central cities surrounded by lowdensity, low-rise housing as opposed to more compact vertical urbanism or tall buildings. House prices surge because of scarcity and supply. Gated communities should be opened up as alternative routes during peak hours. These low-density housing should be converted to a higher one in the future.

It would also be necessary to design our streets pedestrian-friendly spaces, making them walkable and bikeable. Public transport should also be more efficient to encourage more people to use them.

The development of urban growth centers outside Metro Manila will also be necessary to act as counter-magnets. Building international airports in Clark, Batangas and other urban growth centers will also boost urban developments outside Metro Manila.

Metro Cebu and Metro Davao

All throughout the Philippines, new tall building structures are also being proposed and constructed in emerging metropolises as answer to the increasing demand of services, most of them focusing on developing their own central business districts and commercial establishments to make citizens realize that Metro Manila and its CBDs are not the only business hubs to reckon with.

The Cebu Business Park, a 50- hectare special economic zone, is a bustling community that integrates the commercial, residential and leisure aspects of the city and region, created at a time when there was yet no business district south of Manila. The business park’s centrepiece is the nine-hectare Ayala Center Cebu shopping mall.

In the Mindanao Region, road and transportation infrastructure have also dramatically improved and paved the way for urban growth, expansion and commercialization. The Davao region, in particular, consistently increased in capital and financial investment and financial institutions. Compared to the other regions in Mindanao, Davao is known to be more peaceful. And this is one of the reasons that Davao City prides itself as a stable platform for business.

Regional Integration

Regional integration is the collaboration of decentralized cities, working together to move towards a more sustainable development. Crucial elements include synergy and collaboration, especially in the usage and utilization of ports and airports; urban to rural and rural to urban population migration; harnessing natural environment; trade, commerce and industries; housing; cultural assimilation; institutions such as hospitals, education, places of worship, source of energy, source potable water and disposal of waste. Integration is the agglomerate, aggregate, or synthesis of all the factors that affects the person in the city, whether it is direct or indirect.

To address the challenges of regional integration, the national government should create a national sustainability plan and empower cities and regions to integrate plans, instead of local governments creating isolated plans.

There is a need to emphasize and appreciate how transport infrastructure, urban and regional integration should be coupled with visionary leadership, political will, good design, good planning and good governance. Comprehensive and collaborative planning is urgently needed as the rapidly growing population and urbanization estimates that there will be 35 million more Filipinos by 2050. Seventy to 80 percent of them will migrate to the cities. I estimate that with 150 million total population by 2050, the Philippines will need 100 more new cities. There are forecasts that the Philippines can be and should be in the top 20 economies of the world by 2025 and in the top 16 by 2050. Moving forward, planning should not only be short-term and opportunistic, but also long-term and visionary. This will bring the Philippines well into the 21st century, a first world country.