HE STUDIED ARCHITECTURE, ECONOMICS, AND URBAN PLANNING, HE WON THE EISENHOWER SCHOLARSHIP AND HE UNDERSTANDS WHY SOME CITIES ARE SUCCESSFUL AND SOME AREN’T. THIS BACKGROUND IS AT THE CORE OF HIS BRILLIANT PROPOSALS FOR SINGAPORE AND THE NEIGHBOURHOOD HEARTS Alfonso VegaraHONORARY CONSUL GENERAL FOR SINGAPORE IN SPAIN “The dynamism of Southeast Asia is spectacular” Geopolitics is getting complicated. How can the region evolve? Uncertainty will be a constant over the next few years. Nevertheless, there are al-ternatives for stability, such as Singapore and its superb balance between China, the USA, and the West. Almost 80% of its population is Chinese, they speak Chinese at home, and at the same time the official language is English. This duality is ideal in order for Western economies to go to the country and do business in an open, mul-tilateral system. There are other regimes in the area that are markedly political, in one direction or another, but Singapore has al-ways tried to remain sensitive to achieving peace in the region. Is the emergence of Southeast Asia truly so pronounced? The center of gravity of the global economy is shifting toward the region. Its dynamism is spectacular, and we have some of the best companies on the planet designing tunnels, high-speed trains, bridges, airports... It’s truly impressive. Asia is the future. In such a large region, what are the top destinations? If I had to recommend a place for our Span-ish friends to do business, Indonesia would be a priority; it’s immense. It has almost 280 million inhabitants and everything re-mains to be done. The issue is bureaucracy and the fact that its government isn’t very dynamic. There’s enormous potential for our companies to add value. Japan, Korea, and even Singapore all invest in Vietnam, so much so that it has already created eight business parks that provide 300,000 jobs. Not to mention the Philippines, which has the greatest affinity with the Spanish due to historical and cultural ties. Is sustainability non-negotiable? That’s increasingly the case. For example, Singapore is very pragmatic. It prioritized economic profitability, job creation, and development, and environmental concerns came later. But now it’s trying to introduce a strong focus on bioclimatic architecture, on sustainability. Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines are also starting to show this sensitivity, this vision. The future of companies also lies in megacities. Of course. For instance, ACCIONA was very astute to put forward the idea of the Circu-lar City. It got it right decades ago by bet-ting on sustainability, by diversifying and orienting all of its business areas towards the sustainable. I believe the big opportuni-ty lies in coming together in a shift towards the world of cities, of circular urban solu-tions like those used in water, transporta-tion, and real estate development. We’ve seen strategies like the 15-Minute City, in Paris. What city model do you support? I find that concept of a city based on prox-imity interesting, but I prefer the Neigh-borhood Hearts model. A city has to offer possibilities for international connectivity, universities, a diversified financial system, and adapted services. There can’t be a cen-tral city and a peripheral city. Every neigh-borhood should have its own personality, its own character. If you work on specific points of a certain district, you can prompt that transformation. For instance, look at the challenge Madrid is taking on with the decarbonization of buildings construct-ed during the developmentalism of the 1960s and 1970s. It has the ability to change the image of these buildings, to increase self-esteem and strengthen the sense of belonging to the different neighborhoods. © Ramon Castillo Nava