Building cities that care for their citizens

Human-centredness was a key theme at this year’s Festival of Innovation (FOI) 2026 event.  

Public sector leaders shared about the importance of designing policies that address real concerns, developing technology solutions that are truly accessible, and fostering psychologically safe environments in the workplace. 

This idea remained central to the conversation around designing cities and urban services that show care to residents and users, at the panel discussion titled Designing Human-Centric Cities and Services.  

Speakers from four different countries and sectors discussed strategies, solutions and ideas that could help to create liveable and inclusive urban spaces that enable economic growth, sustainability, and social equity.  

The speakers noted that a human-centric city design required shifting perspective from what's convenient for planners to what truly serves the people using the services. 

Achieving this vision entails co-designing with commuters, citizens, and communities, rather than imposing top-down solutions based on convenience. 

Here are four takeaways from this session on how to design cities that care for their residents. 

1. Putting yourself in the user’s shoes 

In terms of urban services, human-centricity was about putting yourself in the shoes of users, said SBS Transit’s Vice President and Head of Customer Experience and Commercial, Shaun Liew.

He shared that progressive transit systems are evolving from focusing on commuting to designing complete end-to-end journeys. 

This includes integrating first-mile and last-mile solutions, partnering with shared mobility providers, and considering the entire user experience from trip planning at home to the final destination. 

“It's not just about moving people. It's about supporting commuters to go from the first to the last point, including planning what is the modality, the physical movement of people from buses and trains to bicycles or to share-cars.” 

Liew shared SBS Transit’ partnership with bike-sharing operator Anywheel, whereby SBS has integrated bicycle services to its mobile application that showed the number of available bikes at a given bus stop, thus facilitating a seamless commuter experience, from planning to destination. 

He added that this was a part of continuous efforts so that users could easily and conveniently use different public transport and achieve an overall pleasant experience in the process.  

2. Embarking on meaningful community engagement 

In Central Asia, Uzbekistan has leveraged its young population (over 70 per cent under 30) by organising hackathons that invite citizens to solve urban challenges.  

Uzbekistan’s Agency for Strategic Reforms, Delivery Unit’s Project Management Specialist, Nariman Akhatov, shared that this approach generated 25 design solutions from thousands of participants in just 20 days.  

Crowdsourcing innovation from those who will live in the future city has helped create more relevant and sustainable solutions. 

“We try to get solutions from Generation Z (Gen Z) and from young people who are interested in solving problems because the future is theirs and they will live in the future country,” he noted.

Some of the hackathon solutions were in process of being prototyped, and this experience has encouraged more young citizens to co-create solutions with the government to solve different urban challenges, shared Akhatov. 

SBS Transit’s Liew added that existing urban spaces, such as transportation hubs, could also be reimagined to foster community engagement.

He shared the example of Tampines Station, which transformed 15,000 square feet into a wellness village by merging lifestyle, retail, and public leisure. 

“This is conveniently located at a transportation node. You got bus interchange, you got the MRT, you got a communal plaza that we have actually built to serve the community… and we position it as a public dance studio,” he shared. 

Partnering with the Singapore Country Line Dance Association, this transportation node has become a destination for jam sessions that occur every third Sunday of the month, fostering community engagement and lively experiences for citizens, noted Liew. 

3. Balancing competing outcomes  

“Liveability is not about choosing between outcomes, but balancing them,” said Centre for Liveable Cities’ Director of Research, Elaine Tan.

She noted that high quality of life, competitive economic conditions, and sustainable environment were outcomes that required integrated master planning, dynamic urban governance, and a collaborative ecosystem. 

Balancing outcomes was essential for cities like Singapore that faced complex and cross-sectoral issues like a rapidly ageing population, she added. 

“The approaches that we design must be interdisciplinary, and because of that we need to look at joint research and policy development. Through research and community engagement we can come up with innovative solutioning,” said Tan. 

She shared about designing dementia-friendly neighbourhoods in collaboration with the Agency for Integrated Care and the Singapore University of Technology and Design. 

The team engaged with persons with dementia, their caregivers and the community, to build awareness, relook at design briefs, improve infrastructure, and gather different insights for effective implementation. 

When designing for cognitively impaired groups who cannot easily communicate their needs, innovative research methodologies like shadowing, graphics, and jigsaw puzzles were helpful to elicit valuable insights, she shared.

“That is important because for the first time we are looking at designing for dementia in a high-density and high-rise context like Singapore, which is very different from most of the other aged societies where there's lots of land for aged villagers.” 

Tan also shared that the insights gathered from this project went into improving Singapore’s accessibility code for building works, such as making rest stops mandatory, improving visual contrast for signs, and enabling wayfinding through better signages in the new towns. 

4. Understanding different needs 

“I want to see cities [designed] based on their needs,” said UNDP’s Asia Pacific Regional Digital and AI Expert, Juan Kanggrawan.  

He emphasised the importance of looking at local needs before implementing technology solutions, for which humility and iteration were key. 

“Humility to admit the future is unpredictable, and iteration to always review, adjust, and tweak the best features that fit the urban ecosystem,” he said.  

To make digital urban solutions truly impactful, they had to be relevant to local communities and contextualised to the circumstances of each city, noted Kanggrawan. 

Moderating the session, Urbanice Malaysia’s Chief Executive, Norliza Hashim, noted that when cities truly commit to human-centric design, they create environments that demonstrate care for their residents.  

“And when you care, high impact will happen. Cities will become safer, happier, and definitely more liveable,” she concluded.