Forest City: Empty Developments, Empty Promises
Malaysia’s Forest City is a recent manifestation of a proliferating international trend of rapid, large-scale developments promoting sustainability. The $100 billion project has been marketed as an “ideal, idyllic and technology driven living and working space ecosystem.” Now, this ‘city of the future’ is in question, surrounded by little but empty residences, ongoing construction, and criticism. The criticism primarily centers around concern over China's involvement in the project, as well as the project’s lack of environmental integrity. These concerns intertwine to create a common consensus that the project is prioritizing drawing foreign capital over creating a city that benefits Malaysians and the surrounding environment.
Forest City is located approximately 2 km from Singapore, at one of the narrowest points of the Strait of Malacca. The city is being constructed on land reclaimed from the Johor Straits and will span four artificial islands that are slated to be completed in 2035. This location is lucrative both economically and geopolitically as it creates a solid foothold in the growing Southeast Asian economy.
The city is within Iskandar Malaysia, a Special Economic Zone created in 2006 to stimulate economic growth for the region. The region has rapidly industrialized since then, with the landscape morphing from a largely agricultural and rural composition to being dominated by construction and widespread development. Industrialization of the region aims to attract international investment to the area, making it a serious competitor to neighboring economic powerhouse, Singapore.
Forest City is promised to be the economic lifeforce of the zone, with plans for extensive industry, education, and tourism across its four islands, as well as homes for 700,000 projected residents. The proposed infrastructure aims at drawing an affluent and international clientele, with an international school and amenities such as luxury hotels and two golf courses. The city is marketed as a place for the wealthy to come to experience a curated world where they can work, shop, and play.
However, the promised 700,000 occupants of the island come up short, with only 20,000 residential units sold so far and one island completed. There has been ongoing criticism from residents in Forest City due to the city's low occupancy level, estimated to be about 1%, as of Dec. 2023. The low occupancy level, ongoing construction, and lack of community have led to Forest City being locally dubbed a “ghost city.” These issues see little resolution for the next dozen years, at a minimum, when the region is still projected to be surrounded by major construction.
Development of this scale carries a heavy price tag. The $100 billion project is undertaken in a joint venture between Country Garden Pacificview (CGPV) and Esplanade Danga 88 Sdn Bhd. CGVP is a subsidiary of Chinese mega-developer Country Garden, which acts as the master developer, owning two-thirds of the project. The remainder is owned by Esplanade Danga 88 Sdn Bhd, a Malaysian government-backed company, whose main shareholder is the Sultan of the Malaysian state Johor, Sultan Ibrahim Ismail.
CGVP’s ownership of Forest City denotes the influx of Chinese foreign direct investment in the area over the past few decades. China has continually encouraged private and state-controlled companies to invest abroad in an effort to expand geopolitical and economic influence. Forest City's location in Iskandar Malaysia is particularly beneficial for China as 80% of Chinese crude oil imports pass through the Strait of Malacca, providing a major incentive for Chinese investment and presence in the area.
The city is not only backed by Chinese capital but has also been marketed largely toward Chinese nationals. About 60% of property sales so far have been to Chinese buyers, while only around 20% of sales have been to Malaysians. This is another paradigm of Chinese presence in Malaysia as the country has long been a popular vacation destination and has a sizable ethnic Chinese population. In Forest City, homes are often bought to serve as investment properties, vacation rentals, or second homes. This has resulted in housing overhanging in the area, with only 30% occupancy expected in Forest City.
Despite the city largely sitting empty, it is marketed as cultivating a lifestyle of “dynamism” to these clients, with promises of a lush, relaxing lifestyle complemented by exciting opportunities for economic growth. However, participation in this “dynamic” lifestyle has a starting price tag of $170,000 for a two-room apartment. In comparison, the average annual income in Malaysia is RM 7,901, which is about $1,686, as of Dec. 2023, which makes living in Forest City financially prohibitive to Johoreans. This disconnect between local residents' income and housing prices may lead to the city acting more as an investment vehicle and foreign vacation spot rather than an accessible Malaysian city.
Mahathir Mohamad, Malaysia's former prime minister, was one of many leaders vehemently opposed to the project as well as the increased presence of Chinese investment in Malaysia, calling the latter a “new version of colonialism.” Mohamad has repeatedly emphasized that the city was built for foreigners and did little for the people of the region. His disdain for the project has reflected the sentiments of other Malaysians and activists.
The city’s environmental footprint also exposed the profit-driven motives behind the project. Ironically, one of the main marketing points of the project is sustainable development. CGPV advertises Forest City as a “smart and green futuristic city” and the city has been hailed for its eco-centered design. The city's environmental planning manifests in plans for a lush, traffic-free city, which involves moving vehicular activity underground and implementing vertical greening, in which the facades of buildings will be blanketed by plants, reflecting the city’s name.
However, the city is far from a site of idyllic co-existence between the urban and the natural. The widespread environmental outcry about various aspects of the project's conception and execution calls the legitimacy of the project’s environmental goals into question. The city’s green design is negligible in comparison to the impact of the project's large-scale development on surrounding ecosystems and communities. The track record of Forest City’s construction is muddied from the start, with CGPV failing to conduct the preliminary and legally required Detailed Environmental Impact Assessment (DEIA). It was only due to Singapore repeatedly expressing concern that CGPV eventually delayed construction and conducted a long overdue DEIA. Skirting this legally required assessment foreshadowed the project's larger environmental neglect.
The city sits on the site of Malaysia's largest field of seagrass, the Tanjung Kupang intertidal seagrass meadow, which fosters an ecosystem rich in biodiversity. The meadows are home to several endangered species of seahorses and dugongs. Already, the construction has cleaved the ecosystem in two, with an access road for the project being planted in the heart of the seagrass fields that change currents in the area. This access road, while temporary, already has had negative reverberations on the ecosystem’s biodiversity and neighboring communities, as local fishing communities in the surrounding areas have reported consistently sparser catches following the causeway’s construction. When pressed to address these environmental concerns, CGVP said they were not aware of the region's biodiversity when beginning the project.
Rapid development has a pattern of profit-seeking, even when the projects are marketed as environmentally conscious. This often leads to an effective dismissal of local ecosystems and peoples, as they are not sources of profit, creating promises of sustainability that ring empty. Forest City has started down this same path and has thus far failed in accounting for the effects that its development has on the surrounding area. As such, moving forward, those behind the project must make more conscious efforts to prioritize the well-being of the local people and ecosystems if they desire to escape vehement criticism and create a city that is as equitable and green as its marketing promises.
