Manila's Emerging Super-CBD

In less than a decade, the three biggest of Manila's many CBD's are expected to finally link up into one contiguous super-CBD, the older Makati & Ortigas linked together with the newer and more ultra-modern Fort Bonifacio. Manila, the multi-centric metropolis with no dominant center, may finally have a real downtown. From the picture above, you'd see the northern finger of Makati (lower one) reaching out for the finger of Fort Bonifacio (right upper, the bulk of the CBD not seen) & the tip of the finger of Ortigas (left upper, the bulk of Ortigas not seen) across the river. This is an old picture, there are already skyscrapers under construction along the riverside across from Makati (the Phillipe Starke-designed Acqua for one & the Trump Tower on the opposite bank, among others). When the three finally meet up, they will create a 10 km. X 5 km. X 5 km. oasis of skyscrapers in the middle of a megalopolis of  20 million souls, framed in here & there by smaller but compact skyscraper clusters from the other CBD's scattered all around them as accents.

Has anybody prepared a master-plan when the three finally link up & effectively function as one enclave? The proposed airport monorail will link up with the existing elevated metro at Guadalupe station (beside the bridge) after slicing through Fort Bonifacio, so it will be entering into the center of the future super-CBD, so to speak. That will be the future nerve center, the Shinjuku, of Metro Manila. It doesn't come as a surprise why it was the Japanese businessmen (Hitachi & Sumitomo) who first noted the value of the monorail route.

They should not stop at Guadalupe, the monorail should sail down riverside J. P. Rizal to connect Rockwell, Makati Avenue, Buendia Avenue to Taft, providing linkage of the Fort CBD & Makati CBD to the LRT line at Taft. The monorail is appropriate because there will be no platform walls to obstruct the view: that turns out to be the most scenic part of Metro Manila as well.

Guadalupe, the future Shinjuku of Metro Manila, with the creeping edge of Rockwell (Makati) at the right, and the creeping tip of Fort Bonifacio at the left

Now, if only developers are encouraged to develop the zones between the other CBD's as well. Incentives should be given to developers who build projects along the boulevards that join the various CBD's. The rundown Pasay-portion of Buendia Avenue is just a couple of kilometers. Tax-breaks should be offered for well-designed buildings in order that that blight should be built over once and for all. Imagine a First World ride from the world class casinos in the reclamation area all the way to Makati, Ortigas & beyond. That will take out 90% of the criticisms from tourists that outside Manila's CBD's are slums.

Makati

Fort Bonifacio

Ortigas

A video passing through the gated communities along the main superhighway, EDSA, cutting between Makati & Fort & entering Rockwell near Guadalupe

ASIAN RED-LIGHT STREET: The Glasshouses of Seoul

Who says only Amsterdam has glass windows which displays prostitutes for sale? This racket in Seoul is only known to a few foreign tourists because it mostly caters to locals & is not mentioned in the usual guides. There's nothing like it at the foreigners' haunts at Itaewon. There were three spots in Seoul that had this racket before but the ones at Yongsan have been gentrified as skyscrapers invaded the area. Of the two remaining, access to one is well-curtained off from view by rubber strips hung at the entrance  of the alley leading to it. But the one below is found in the alley behind a busy shopping mall's parking lot located beside a very busy metro station. After exiting from the main entrance, turn left and enter the first alley beside the mall, walk straight ahead & just after the parking lot at your right, you'll already see two middle-aged mama-san up ahead, who more than likely will already be smiling sweetly at you. The whole 300-meter alley at your right is full of glass houses, both sides. Business is 24 hours.

NOTE: Prostitution is illegal in South Korea, this just means that corruption exists everywhere. It's obvious this is just a "small-time" operation in some alley and I'm way past considering it as "cool". I think sex and easy girls have become so common-place in the recent past that I actually consider as more "extra-cool" those who are harder to get. The way of the pendulum, as they say. If one end gets too familiar and too easy, find mystery at the other end. I'm just featuring a "curious" event here.

ASIAN RED-LIGHT DISTRICT: Fukuoka's Nakasu

Nakasu is a small island tucked between the old merchant center of Hakata and the new commercial center of Fukuoka, Tenjin. The Meiji Dori which bisects the length of Fukuoka enters Nakasu from Tenjin and connects the red-light district to Hakata on the other side of the island. The impressive commercial center of Tenjin along Watanabe Dori is effectively joined to the old Hakata commercial center by Nakasu to form the new unified downtown of Fukuoka. One of the most impressive retail areas of Japan.

This is Watanabe Dori, the main shopping drag of Tenjin.

 This is Meiji Dori after bisecting Watanabe Dori, before crossing the bridge to Nakasu.

Nakasu is an island. An old part of the old merchant town which evolved into the nightlife center of the modern one.

On the other side, the old merchant center of Hakata.

Nakasu comes alive at night.

OLD ASIAN COMMERCIAL CENTERS: Taipei's Ximending & Manila's Quiapo

Quiapo is the old commercial/ transportation center of the old Spanish/American Manila. When Manila was destroyed after the Second World War (Quiapo was burned), the elite developed empty "haciendas" outside the old city ring road into American-style real estate developments that became so successful that they forgot Quiapo, and the old city itself. Well, Quiapo is still a busy commercial/transportation center, mostly of the not well-off masses, but unlike its counterparts in Taipei (Ximending) or Tokyo (Ginza, Shibuya, Shinjuku), it stagnated and became seedy. Is it really poverty? Or lack of imagination? Manila developed modern commercial centers in its newer urban zones which could compete with those of Tokyo or Taipei but why was its old Quiapo got left behind?

No, it's not poverty. Let's compare Quiapo with the evolution of the other old commercial centers of Asia: first, Ximending in Taipei and then, Shibuya in Tokyo and Mjeungdong in Seoul, etc.

It's hard to believe that Manila was considered more developed than Taipei at one time but when Manila was the "Queen City of the Pacific"(as the Americans called their Asian capital), Taipei was a dingy provincial town. With the development of Taiwan, has Ximending so outpaced Quiapo that the latter will forever be green with envy? Remarkably, portions of Taipei (Wanhua) & Manila (Quiapo/Sta. Cruz) almost look the same that if only the two Manila districts were cleaner, they would fit in Taipei even with their present buildings.

Look at Ximending below, it could be Plaza Miranda in Quiapo BUT (1) it is cleaner, (2) no vagrants, (3) no vendors -which are okay, btw, as long as they keep their premises clean, like the yatai in Fukuoka, (4) look at how they use advertisements and Chinese character signs as part of the design. It is cruder in Taipei but as we'll see in our post on Tokyo's Shibuya, the Japanese has perfected the art of using LED, and the Japanese signs became iconic parts of the architectural details themselves.

This is Zhonghua Road, in front of Ximending shopping area, the equivalent of Quezon Boulevard in Quiapo, Manila.

Ximending is found in the corner of Zhonghua & Chengdu Road. Note the buildings in Chengdu Road, you could be in Raon St., Quiapo.

We enter Ximending shopping district which was converted into a pedestrian mall.

Note the buildings, same as in Evangelista, Quiapo, but the ambiance was brightened up by the orange posts which attract more your attention. Again, the signs were part of the decor, plus there's the ubiquitous LCD screen, even in Manila now, as accent.

This is the spine of the pedestrian shopping area, Hanzhong Street, which unites three parallel side streets. Same orange street posts, same sign decors, but as you can see the buildings are not much different from those found in Quiapo or Sta. Cruz.

Look at these parts.

The classier parts.

This is one of the exits at Xining North Road. It could be in a cleaner Recto.

This is the second entrance at Zhonghua Road. It could be in Bilibid Viejo.

Ximending comes alive at night.

Conclusion:

 As you have seen, the only difference between Ximending, a cool tourist attraction of Taipei, & Quiapo/Sta. Cruz, blights of Manila, is the packaging. The overhead costs seem not much:(1) they made the place cleaner, (2) they improved the pavement in spots, (3) they invested in cooler signs (4) they put decorations like the orange posts but it was enough to create a cooler ambiance. IUn short, they created a brand.

As I've said above, our slob Quiapo is a result not of poverty but of poor imagination & plain indifference. The Ximending experience, which prides itself as the equivalent of Tokyo's Harajuku in Shibuya, could be recreated in Manila. Of course, with another look and concept. The heavy presence of Muslims in Quiapo could be incorporated into the ambiance to remove the touch of merely copying. The pedestrian plazas in Tokyo, as we'll see in a future post, do not feature orange posts, but they polished more of the facades of the stores themselves, a more expensive proposition.

Btw, Harajuku is the teenage lifestyle center of Shibuya in Japan, it is the model of Ximending, & it could be adapted in a part (just one of the side streets perhaps) of Quiapo considering that it's near the University Belt, just to attract the young crowd to the area (we'll have separate features on the "university belts" of other Asian cities). This is a good option for Quiapo considering that after the opening of Bonifacio High Street, open shopping has become vogue in Manila again as confirmed by the construction of Blue Walk in the reclamation area. In fact, the Ximending transformation can be created up to Binondo, creating a kilometer long shopping corridor like the Istiklal pedestrian shopping corridor of Istanbul, which transforms into it's nightlife central after dark (I'll feature this later: Turkey, despite the European pretensions of its elite, is still mostly Asian in flavor anyway).